[The
Other Side, part of the “After Hours Shorts Program 3”,
screens Firday March 27th at 11:00 pm at Tower City Cinemas as part
of the 39th Cleveland International Film Festival.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
Kate (DeDe Drake) and Abby (Lidya
Korotko) are a lesbian couple arguing about their relationship while
driving through the desert. Abby is upset that Kate doesn't share her
level of commitment, and by the time the couple reaches their
destination more or less in the middle of nowhere, she's ready to
break up. Just one last bit of business to handle: the two have been
paid to dispose of a body. Once it's buried, though, that's it. Only
problem is, the body isn't quite as dead as it was supposed to be.
Ethan (Brandon Bales) pleads for his life while the women try to
figure out what to do. Burying a corpse is one thing, but they aren't
killers.
While struggling to escape, Ethan gets
his hands on a flare gun and fires it. Despite this, he seems on the
verge of convincing the women to let him go when a truckload of
nearby rednecks show up, alerted by the flare. They leer suggestively
at the ladies like they stepped out of central casting for rapey hick
stereotypes, but appear to be more bark than bite. Then one of the
rednecks makes a comment that strikes a nerve with Ethan and the
situation escalates into violence.
The overall tone here is decidedly
post-Tarantino, the two female leads with their back and forth banter
seemingly inspired by Jules and Vincent from PULP FICTION.
It feels like an exercise or a demo reel more than a story
writer/director Scott Brown just had to tell, but it does show what
he's capable of. On a technical level, that's quite a lot, as
the guy definitely has the filmmaking chops.
Taken at face value, “The Other Side”
is reasonably entertaining if a bit contrived. Its attempt at some
sort of deeper emotional resonance comes off a bit forced, but there
are plenty worse ways to kill 20 minutes. Based on this, I'd say not
only does Brown have what it takes to take a stab at a feature film,
I'd also be happy to check it out. Hopefully he dials down the
Tarantino influence and finds more of his own voice, but even if he
doesn't my guess is he could deliver a solid B genre film. 2 ½ out
of 4 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.