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Conrad (Michael Rodrick) asleep
with the armed Jennifer (Debbie Rochon) 
in the background
Photo: First Run Features

NOWHERE MAN
Directed, Written, Director of Photography & Edited by: Tim McCann.
Produced by: Mark Tchelistcheff, Larry O'Niel & Tim McCann.
Music by: Rob Strait & Drew Stiles.
Released by: First Run Features.
Country of Origin: USA. 80 min. Not Rated.
With: Michael Rodrick, Debbie Rochon & Frank Olivier.

Answering his door bell one morning, white bread Conrad (Michael Rodrick) finds nothing but an unidentified videotape lying on the ground. Curiosity gets the better of Conrad. Watching the video, he immediately notices the woman with long hair is none other than his fiancée Jennifer (Debbie Rochon). In the film within the film, a detective pays a house call to a woman in distress. Just as Julianne Moore as a porn actress in Boogie Nights carefully and consciously utters every word of blue dialogue, Rochon as an aspiring actress gives a similarly hilarious, phonetic performance. Not only is the video pornographic but to make matters more humiliating for Conrad, Jennifer’s scene partner is Daddy Mac (real-life porn actor Frank Olivier), famous for his endowment and star of “White Girls on My Jock.”

Not since Paul Verhoeven’s The Fourth Man has a film produced such castration anxiety. This is a different kind of horror film, where the threatened victim is male vanity. As a spurned woman, Debbie Rochon’s vulnerability and heartfelt performance lifts this no-budget production shot on digital video. Unlike Jennifer’s ill-fated acting career, Rochon comes across as natural. Though relying on shock value, Nowhere Man does have subtle moments; during a casual conversation in happier times, Conrad, with Jennifer looking away, preens shirtless in front of a mirror, flexing his muscles, before his ego takes a fall.

Since the tumultuous outcome of Jennifer and Conrad’s unraveling relationship is revealed in the first act, Nowhere Man relies less on suspense as it does on a high squirm and gross-out factor. For men, it will be an endurance test to sit still, though the closing credits reassures, tongue-in-cheek, that no penises were harmed in the making of the film. Kent Turner
March 25, 2005

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