A dissolute scriptwriter and a dejected actor become unwittingly drawn into a labyrinthine mess when several people experience bizarre accidental deaths in their flat. Though the men didn't deliberately cause any of the incidents, they fear that they will be unfairly pegged as murderers if they relay information to the cops, and promptly set about disposing of the corpses in gruesome ways.
24 Dec A Movie With Me in It (2008)
Interesting and Uninteresting Muddles
Once again, we have a script concept that is promising enough to matter. Once again, we have an inept film built on that idea, inept because the writer wanted to be in it.
The overall shape is an ordinary, explicit fold: one buddy is a blocked film writer, the other an unemployed actor. Noir-inspired events transpire, messing with them while “giving them material” for a film we discover at the end is the film we are seeing. That shape is common. What is clever is the dialog that jumps from one side of the line to another, in and out of the movie, realizing that “out” is really “in”.
There are roles that are designated viewers: loyal dog, crippled brother, lecherous landlord, allsuffering girlfriend, kind policewoman. Each is developed as noir center then dispatched in the same tone that the dialog uses in dismissing genre ideas. It is really quite a brilliant script idea. If anyone could pull it off, it would be the Irish. They invented this. But alas, the film does not have enough energy to let us know when it is changing direction. You need sound to have music.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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