Despite a strong start, VINCENT YOUNG is largely a misfire for Wild Dogs Productions. The movie shares many of the same traits we've seen in previous dark comedies from director Fredianelli, but instead of scoring again with a similar formula and characters, the results are mostly sterile. The movie doesn't manage to go anywhere particularly interesting by film's end and doesn't have enough stand out scenes to justify its brand of what amounts to mostly nihilism for nihilism's sake. Sure there's humor, but most of the film's comedic beats are inane and focus on bodily functions.
Let's talk about what the movie does get right though. The aforementioned opening act is a lot of fun. It's a prologue set in 1989 with all the fun art direction touches you'd expect to see for the time period. We get some fun insights into the lead character and his twin brother's childhood. The movie then jumps forward to the present with a blitzkrieg montage featuring the twins. Some nice production values are shown off including a Hawaii location and a hilarious shot involving multiple hookers and mountains of cocaine. The movie utilizes a fun video game motif that begins in the flashback and carries over to the rest of the movie. The retro 8-bit music and titles add some nice flavor along with some clever parallel editing that uses the game play on screen to illustrate a key point in the plot. There's also a nod to YouTube's The Angry Video Game Nerd later in the movie with Fredianelli providing his own AVGN inspired shtick that surpasses even the Nerd's own review of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES for the Nintendo Entertainment System. While this is all well and good, it's unfortunate so much of the movie hinges on including so much unlicensed intellectual property. While the film does have other problems related to watchability, it's a shame it set itself up to probably end up reaching no further than becoming a YouTube upload itself because of this.
Another strong point worth mentioning about the movie is its cast. Everyone performs at the top of their game with Fredianelli (his funniest moment involving him clad as Santa Claus with game controller in hand and pillow-enhanced belly obscuring half of his face) proving capable once again of making the viewer feel sympathetic to an otherwise unsympathetic main character. The supporting players also stand out particularly well and are headlined with a group of actresses that are as charismatic as they are pretty (despite being largely the butt of the movie's bodily waste based humor). Though granted little screen time, an almost unrecognizable James Allen Brewer manages to outshine everyone as a grubby, homeless man with booze induced slurred speech.
As it stands, VINCENT YOUNG has some good ingredients, but never makes much of an impression as a cohesive narrative film. With what it does have going for it, it's too bad the sum of the movie's parts couldn't yield a more satisfying and funny movie.
Let's talk about what the movie does get right though. The aforementioned opening act is a lot of fun. It's a prologue set in 1989 with all the fun art direction touches you'd expect to see for the time period. We get some fun insights into the lead character and his twin brother's childhood. The movie then jumps forward to the present with a blitzkrieg montage featuring the twins. Some nice production values are shown off including a Hawaii location and a hilarious shot involving multiple hookers and mountains of cocaine. The movie utilizes a fun video game motif that begins in the flashback and carries over to the rest of the movie. The retro 8-bit music and titles add some nice flavor along with some clever parallel editing that uses the game play on screen to illustrate a key point in the plot. There's also a nod to YouTube's The Angry Video Game Nerd later in the movie with Fredianelli providing his own AVGN inspired shtick that surpasses even the Nerd's own review of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES for the Nintendo Entertainment System. While this is all well and good, it's unfortunate so much of the movie hinges on including so much unlicensed intellectual property. While the film does have other problems related to watchability, it's a shame it set itself up to probably end up reaching no further than becoming a YouTube upload itself because of this.
Another strong point worth mentioning about the movie is its cast. Everyone performs at the top of their game with Fredianelli (his funniest moment involving him clad as Santa Claus with game controller in hand and pillow-enhanced belly obscuring half of his face) proving capable once again of making the viewer feel sympathetic to an otherwise unsympathetic main character. The supporting players also stand out particularly well and are headlined with a group of actresses that are as charismatic as they are pretty (despite being largely the butt of the movie's bodily waste based humor). Though granted little screen time, an almost unrecognizable James Allen Brewer manages to outshine everyone as a grubby, homeless man with booze induced slurred speech.
As it stands, VINCENT YOUNG has some good ingredients, but never makes much of an impression as a cohesive narrative film. With what it does have going for it, it's too bad the sum of the movie's parts couldn't yield a more satisfying and funny movie.