NoFace for Film

Title: Saul Goodman
Year: 2006
Director: Jim Connell
Starring Voices: John Cammarata, Eric Scheiner
Rated: Not rated, but most likely R

NoFace for Film rating: 5 out of 7

In Forrest Gump, the titular character spends much of the film telling his unbelievable life story to strangers as they wait for the bus. Similarly, a chance meeting between two strangers at an empty train station unleashes a series of wild but fascinating tales in the short film Saul Goodman.

After missing the last train out of Boston, a young MIT student (voice of Eric Scheiner) finds himself stuck in the station with a very talkative and opinionated old man (voice of John Cammarata). A police standoff featured on the station TV prompts the old man to tell four stories that are so outrageous and conspiratorial that the young man couldn’t help but listen in disbelief.

The old man describes a connection between the police standoff, an assassination attempt on a Presidential candidate, a sex scandal, and a historic scientific discovery - and somehow, he’s indirectly involved. Naturally, the skeptical young man contests the old man’s story. When the old man can’t give the name of one of the people he dealt with in his stories, the young man offers the pseudonym “Saul Goodman”, i.e., it’s all good, man.

Although the film is very short, it packs a wallop. The old man’s action-packed, tittilating tales are filled with sex, lies, corruption, and murder, featured as a series of graphic flashbacks. There’s definitely a Usual Suspects feeling to the film, especially near the end. Are these stories true, or just the ramblings of an old man with an active imagination?

Saul Goodman is a well-made film, especially for one that contains no live actors or a set. The film is essentially a machinima, though director Jim Connell didn’t use a game engine to create the characters. Instead, he used a graphics software called Poser for the character animation, and imported them into another software called Lightwave. After watching the film, I thought back to my machinima artists interview. They explained that there really isn’t much of a difference between machinima and live-action film making, just that each medium presents its own challenges. Indeed, Saul Goodman is not that different from a live-action thriller flick, except that it was digitally created.

While the film can be considered a serious political thriller, Saul Goodman does have many clever and funny moments. For example, when the duo are discussing news of a hit-and-run, the MIT student demonstrates his mad physics skills by determining the car’s speed as it ran into an unfortunate jogger. The screen turns into a chalkboard covered with all sorts of mathematical equations, as the young man prattles on about the inertia of the car and the degree of the arc of the body as it hit the ground.

I wasn’t too impressed however, with the voice acting. Both Cammarata and Scheiner boast stage experience in their resumes. While on stage it’s important to slightly overact since most of the audience can’t see your face, there’s no need to do so in a film, even a digital one. Cammarata puts on his best cranky Jewish grandpa impression, while Scheiner overdoes it on playing Doubting Thomas. At the same time, I liked the rapid-fire delivery of their lines and thought it was Tarantinoesque.

The animation itself is a little rough and not near the quality of say, a Pixar film. But considering that Saul Goodman was filmed by small production company Avant Guard films, they weren’t exactly competing with any big animation studios. Also, once the old man opens his mouth, you forget about the quality of the animation and focus on his fantastic tales.

Saul Goodman is currently making the rounds of various film festivals. If you’re interested in catching it - and I highly recommend that you do if you have the chance - visit the film festival section on the Saul Goodman website for more information.