NoFace for Film

Title: Bums
Year: 2005
Director: Brett Butler, Jason Butler
Starring Cast: Jason Butler, Tessa Sproule, Brett Butler, Tammy Gerus, Jeremiah McCann, Karen Suzuki
Rated: Unrated

NoFace for Film rating: 3 out of 7

A few weeks ago, I received an email from Brett Butler, one of the directors of this movie. He and his brother Jason are Canadian independent film makers (check out their website, Substance Production, for information on their other films) and have been asking the authors of small-time movie review sites like mine to check out their movies. They sent me Bums for my perusal.

I find it pretty cool that these guys had contacted me and asked to review their movie. I didn’t think anyone was reading my stuff Admittedly, it’s a little intimidating to write up this less-than-stellar review and know for a fact that Brett and Jason will be reading this, but I think that my comments should be considered as constructive criticism that they can put to use for their next film.

By the way, I encourage other independent film makers out there to do the same. Send me your movies; I’ll watch them and review them. It may or may not get the best review, but it still gets the word out on it. I’m no Roger Ebert and have millions of people visiting my website, but that may be a good thing

Bums follows one day in the lives of six people. Dave (Jason), Don (Brett), Jill (Sproule), Lucy (Gerus), Heather (Suzuki), and Jim (McCann). However, contrary to what the title suggests, Bums is more than just a bunch of young slackers goofing around. Rather, it’s really about relationships. The main plot is established early on when Dave breaks up with Jill, and the rest of the movie focuses on how they individually deal with their new situation. Both Dave and Jill are comforted by their friends in different ways, and the movie alternates between what the boys are doing versus what the girls are doing. Meanwhile, a subplot develops when Don meets Jill’s roommate Lucy.

First I’ll talk about the technical aspects of the movie. Although the outtakes show that it was filmed in color, Bums itself is featured in black and white, for a grittier, more indie look I suppose. The film quality is not the greatest. It seems that a non-professional handheld camcorder was used to make the movie. However, the sound was good. The outtakes suggest that dubbing was required for the noisier scenes and the lip-synching was done well. Film editing was for the most part ok, but there were one or two scenes that ended abruptly; the person talking was cut off. The lighting of certain scenes was somewhat poor. Sometimes you can see the light reflecting from the camera and onto a person’s face. Also, some of the camera angles were a little awkward. In one scene, the camera pans slowly from left to right to focus on each person, but the panning is not quite smooth. In addition, there were times when the camera focuses on something for no reason, like a closeup of a shoe being tied.

There was this technique that they often used which split the screen into parts, like panels in a comic book. Doing it once was fine and kind of cool, but 4 or 5 times was a bit much and was distracting to the plot.

Now, as for the acting- it needs some work. Some of the actors were a little over the top. The scenes in which Dave talks to himself to psych himself out feel a little forced and cliched. Suzuki’s angry feminist portrayal of Heather was especially overblown. Meanwhile, Gerus’ portrayal of Lucy was the complete opposite. I understand that Lucy is supposed to be somewhat cynical and distant, but she didn’t have to talk in such a monotone, droning voice. I got bored with her after a while. However, I noticed though, that as the movie went on, the acting seemed to improve (except Suzuki and Gerus), which made me wonder if it just took some time for the actors to get comfortable with their roles.

As for Bums as a whole, I think that the first third was rather slow and boring. The pseudo-philosophical conversations some of the characters have have been done before, but in a smoother and less forced manner. Fortunately, they introduced the character of Jim, who gave the movie a burst of energy that it needed. McCann is hilarious as the arrogant, womanizing, loud mouthed, obnoxious, and sleazy Jim. He stole a lot of scenes he was in. Meanwhile, all the scenes with Jill and Heather flat out irritated me. Nearly every scene was composed of their stupid male bashing and so-called “woman power”. It got old really quickly. It was much more entertaining to watch the guys’ scenes.

As you can guess from my comments, I think that overall, Bums could have been better. Granted, I’m still cutting it some slack since it is after all, an independent film, and it isn’t fair to compare it with a typical Hollywood production. Surely the Butler brothers don’t have a big Hollywood budget for a huge crew, fancy camera equipment, and such. And they probably just used some of their friends and relatives as actors (a la Kevin Smith, when he did Clerks). At the same time however, as I mentioned earlier, I consider my comments as constructive criticism and hope that they’re helpful for the brothers’ next project.

I encourage you guys to visit the Butler brothers’ website and check out the movie for yourselves.