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Neil Breen is a director who doesn't care for filmmaking rules, mainly because he doesn't know any of them. You know how movies are supposed to be 'show, don't tell'? Neil Breen tells and tells and tells. Breen doesn't trust our brains to make even the most basic connections. In Breen's universe, a guy who just saw a car accident has to literally say 'I'm a witness!', because otherwise our feeble minds may not understand that complex concept. He writes dialogues like English is not his first language, or even in the top five for that matter.
Because his movies are so surreal, Breen has often been compared to "The Room"'s Tommy Wiseau. The main difference is that lightning only struck once for old Tommy. He hasn't made anything remotely entertaining since 2003. Breen however keeps churning them out, with no difficulties whatsoever. This is a guy who doesn't have to do any effort to stay weird, incomprehensible and because of that, incredibly fascinating.
I'm writing this review for "Fateful Findings", but it could work for any of his movies. They're all pretty much the same. Breen always casts himself as an implausibly perfect being who rids the world of all the evils. The evils are usually found in the big companies, who are driven by greed and don't care about people. I know this because the villains actually have to say that in all his movies. Breen doesn't even know the meaning of subtext, and that's why we all love him so much.
As interesting as his movies are to watch, a making-of would certainly be infinite times better. There are just so many questions that remain unanswered here. How much does he have to pay these beautiful young 'actresses' (models at best) to pretend they're in love with him? Why does a man who's clearly in his 50s keep casting himself as a thirty-something? Why do the characters pause roughly thirty seconds between each line? How do you hack the government on laptops that aren't even on? Why do we have to see Neil Breen semi-nude so often throughout his movies? For a guy who spells our every detail, Breen sure does leave plenty of questions.
Tommy Wiseau and James "Birdemic" Nguyen ended up ruining their charm by becoming self-aware, but I honestly don't see that happening with Breen. To him, there's clearly not a funny moment to be found in any of his movies, and that's why they work: because he takes them so damn seriously while nobody else does. Furthermore, his heart seems to be in the right place. He clearly wants to make a statement about all the injustice in the world, in between showing his abs. I applaud him for that, he's a so-bad-it's-good filmmaker I can really get behind.
score 3/10
Sandcooler 25 June 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4957893/ |
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28-2-2021 00:07:14