Sunday, December 19, 2010

MODUS OPERANDI


Shot piecemeal over several years on 8mm, this movie tells the story of an assassin brought out of retirement to chase two briefcases in exchange for the name of the man who killed his wife.

Aside from genre mainstay Danny Trejo and a couple of other veterans (including Mark Metcalf), there are few professional actors in this movie, giving the blocky setups a leaden and weird vibe. Filmmaker Frankie Latina seems to have drafted acquaintances at his various locations (including Milwaukee, Tokyo, and Taipei) - the film may well have been shot on different vacations, which is borne out by the home movie feel of the thing. Most of these performers are at least enthusiastic, and give Latina credit for including as much male nudity as female.

It's completely devoid of polish, chock full of filler, and listlessly acted...but it's never, ever boring, with a few action scenes that pop up out of nowhere. One never knows what's coming, and the off-kilter delirium does pay off come the action-packed, profoundly insane climactic shootout (though there's still about fifteen minutes after that, including a couple minutes of low-budget sci-fi and a final explosion that, disappointingly, we don't get to see.)

The cult that is allowing Tommy Wiseau to control their responses to his shitty, shitty, shitty movie THE ROOM would do well to discover this movie - it's less pretentious and a lot more fun.

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