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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
SKILLS LIKE THIS Max (co-writer Spencer Berger) is a playwright who can’t write. While having lunch with his two best friends—who suggest Max’s awful artistic skills are to blame for a relative falling into a coma while watching his play—he realizes that robbing a bank is probably something he could do better instead. There is no explanation for why he believes this is true, or why this turns out to be true when he suddenly leaves the restaurant to rob a bank across the street. Max is an atypical robber—he’s congenial and considerate. Max steals a gun from the bank’s security guard, but only directs it at his own head, and he apologizes when he demands money from a teller. But his inscrutable expressions start to become repetitive, and his once startling actions predictable: he’s going to do and say whatever’s least likely in a normal plot progression. Instead of spending his stolen profit, he wants to return it; when he steals from a cash register, he gives the money to a boy in line for candy. It’s one thing to try to defy character conventions, but you have to be a pro to defy logical plot progression at the same time. Without a climax or a real storyline, we watch otherwise generic characters—including Max’s uptight, staid young white-collar friend Dave (co-writer Gabriel Tigerman) and simpleton Tommy (Brian D. Phelan)—wander through their lives without purpose. Awestruck and envious over Max’s criminal exploits, each discovers the joy of responding to the world with a shrug and a defiant “Who cares?” attitude that feels unearned from the lack of character development. To further the theme of living vigorously and aimlessly, Max moves in with his new girlfriend, Lucy (Kerry Knuppe), who he’s just met. (Actually, Lucy is the teller he robbed at the bank—they met again by coincidence at a bar later that night and fell in love several minutes later.) Even though crime drew them together, Lucy wants Max to stop stealing right when he finds out how much he enjoys it. Another inversion: their pure love starts as a given, so we watch their problems unfold instead of their romance. You know
all those familiar parts of a crime movie that feel stale—those plot
elements that make you think, “I’ve seen this before,” and change the
channel? It turns out those exist for a reason. (And the self-conscious
acting and flat dialogue don’t help here either.)
Zachary Jones
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