This promising film could have used a couple more drafts over the script to iron things out into a genuinely entertaining darkly satirical cautionary tale. With a little more TLC and money it could have been a very arresting and enlightening portrait of a young couple caught up in the cycle of corporate greed. We would see their life gradually unwind and turn tragic, culminating in some horrible crime that changes things. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
That's sort of what happens here, but it's all weighed down by a bizarre mixture of heavy-handedness and sillyness. Almost every character in the movie seems to speak with the same voice with the exception of another ruthlessly over-the-top performance by Jeremy Koerner as a ruthless executive and a wonderfully subtle, barely keeping a lid on his inner rage, Michael Nose as his foil. The two of them are certainly the villainous bright spots in this film filled with a lot of overacting to dialog that comes off as a one long rambling rant about capitalism.
Most irritating about the script is the utter contempt shown at the viewer via some strange direction the script takes, as well as in the form of how it satirically depicts financial fraud of the elderly. Most of the victims are depicted via voices over the phone, which all sound like one actor trying out a bevy of silly voices. This certainly undoes much of what the film was going for (criticism of these unscrupulous investment firms) when it depicts the victimized as total idiots with cartoon character voices. The film winks and smiles at us as though the whole system (perpetrators AND victims) is greedy and stupid (exactly how writer Stielstra performs the winking, smiling greasy villain) which sounds a lot more fun than what we actually get. Stielstra appears only on a computer screen in some amusing videos to "pump up" his employees, but his character turns out to be a bit of a red herring in favor of some malicious trigger-happy Texans who leap in to steal the lead-antagonist spotlight to get their money back.
The film's strongest scene seems to me to be the interrogation of a weaselly employee about to be terminated which goes hilariously over-the-top owing to some great acting by all involved. Then we get another climax involving a Peckinpah style shootout over a foiled kidnapping and an office rampage that feel totally out of left field and barely connected to the rest of the film. Michael Nose finds his comeuppance though it isn't in the way one would expect (his established friction with the protagonist - the Chinese Restaurant scene is a hoot!), but over some random Mexican gangsters who climb out of the woodwork to kill and leave the film. It's a good scene, but disappointing considering it ends the most tense plot thread in the movie long before the ending. While I like being surprised, this film just takes a few too many random turns to the point where it turns confusing and goofy, reliant on too many coincidences to work. Perhaps I'd have been better able to understand the film had the audio been crisper in a few key dialog scenes with machinery running in the background.
I do appreciate the whimpering father hostage in the bed-sheet toga certainly taking his notes from the cowardly warden in MAXIMUM CONVICTION, as well as Koerner using the term 'F-stick' in a nice MALEVOLENCE reference. Also, the cinematography and editing both feel so weird and off-kilter that I have to say they give this film an unnerving and possible unintentional sense of style. It's by turns very frustrating and hard to look away from wondering what strange decision they'll make next.
That's sort of what happens here, but it's all weighed down by a bizarre mixture of heavy-handedness and sillyness. Almost every character in the movie seems to speak with the same voice with the exception of another ruthlessly over-the-top performance by Jeremy Koerner as a ruthless executive and a wonderfully subtle, barely keeping a lid on his inner rage, Michael Nose as his foil. The two of them are certainly the villainous bright spots in this film filled with a lot of overacting to dialog that comes off as a one long rambling rant about capitalism.
Most irritating about the script is the utter contempt shown at the viewer via some strange direction the script takes, as well as in the form of how it satirically depicts financial fraud of the elderly. Most of the victims are depicted via voices over the phone, which all sound like one actor trying out a bevy of silly voices. This certainly undoes much of what the film was going for (criticism of these unscrupulous investment firms) when it depicts the victimized as total idiots with cartoon character voices. The film winks and smiles at us as though the whole system (perpetrators AND victims) is greedy and stupid (exactly how writer Stielstra performs the winking, smiling greasy villain) which sounds a lot more fun than what we actually get. Stielstra appears only on a computer screen in some amusing videos to "pump up" his employees, but his character turns out to be a bit of a red herring in favor of some malicious trigger-happy Texans who leap in to steal the lead-antagonist spotlight to get their money back.
The film's strongest scene seems to me to be the interrogation of a weaselly employee about to be terminated which goes hilariously over-the-top owing to some great acting by all involved. Then we get another climax involving a Peckinpah style shootout over a foiled kidnapping and an office rampage that feel totally out of left field and barely connected to the rest of the film. Michael Nose finds his comeuppance though it isn't in the way one would expect (his established friction with the protagonist - the Chinese Restaurant scene is a hoot!), but over some random Mexican gangsters who climb out of the woodwork to kill and leave the film. It's a good scene, but disappointing considering it ends the most tense plot thread in the movie long before the ending. While I like being surprised, this film just takes a few too many random turns to the point where it turns confusing and goofy, reliant on too many coincidences to work. Perhaps I'd have been better able to understand the film had the audio been crisper in a few key dialog scenes with machinery running in the background.
I do appreciate the whimpering father hostage in the bed-sheet toga certainly taking his notes from the cowardly warden in MAXIMUM CONVICTION, as well as Koerner using the term 'F-stick' in a nice MALEVOLENCE reference. Also, the cinematography and editing both feel so weird and off-kilter that I have to say they give this film an unnerving and possible unintentional sense of style. It's by turns very frustrating and hard to look away from wondering what strange decision they'll make next.
