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IF I DIDN’T CARE
Written, Produced & Directed by: Benjamin and Orson Cummings.
Director of Photography: Brian Pryzpek.
Edited by Geoffrey Richman.
Music by Michael Tremante.
Released by: Artistic License Films.
Country of Origin: USA. 90 min. Not Rated.
With: Bill Sage, Susie Misner, Noelle Beck, Ronald Guttman, Alex Kilgore, Mirelly Taylor, Brian McQuillan & Roy Scheider.

It’s not uncommon for filmmakers to take on a crime film or neo-noir as a first feature. Rather, it’s a popular and successful stepping stone, see the Coen brothers as a textbook example, but the elements in brothers Benjamin and Orson Cummings’ debut film (infidelity, murder-by-passion, a botched crime) have been left out in the open too long, and thus, the filmmakers have to rely more on their characters than plot to be really interesting. Yet, they are all too easy to read.

Simple premise: real estate agent Davis Meyers (Bill Sage) has an affair with fellow agent Hadley (beautiful Susie Misner) and decides that he can’t have his wealthy wife, Janice (Noelle Beck), divorce him and leave him bankrupt – he makes very few sales even out in the prestigious Hamptons – so he plots to have her killed, preferably by Hadley. The murder goes awry, a maid is killed, and weathered veteran detective Linus (Roy Scheider) gets on the case. Potential slip-ups and clues are found, and the tensions mount for Davis, who tries to keep his cool, and Hadley who just can’t.

With the standard doomed love triangle and a determined and not-quite-cynical detective, only few sparks of originality fly. There’s one clever scene, however, when Davis and Linus first meet along the beach walking their dogs, and they discuss the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (also the name of Linus’s dog) and his ideas on will and metaphysics, a theme meant to stretch out onto the rest of the film as a possible overlapping philosophy. Convincing? Not much at all.

If one is to be entertained, or at least absorbed, by the events that transpire, shouldn’t there be some added surprise or more depth in the characters, or more of an assured directorial style? In this case, the Cummings brothers don’t deliver on this “if.” Davis is barely two-dimensional, and Sage doesn’t do much to bring him to life. Hadley is an equally shallow and lustful counterpart to Davis. Scheider is probably the only reason the film is making it out to theaters. To see him work at a part with just the bare bones of context as an aging professional making quick observations might make the film worth watching for a few minutes at a time on TV. Jack Gattanella
August 3, 2007