Down with America
Directed by Richard Ferrerado
Written by Mary Hornbacher
Starring Peter Roach, Meri Stevens, Joe Kaczkowski, Robb Sherman, and Kevin Flowers
As reviewed by James Brundage
I don't box with kid gloves. I don't play nice, I'm not a nice guy, and I never, ever, go easy on a film. I consider it to be a breech of some sort of code of ethics for a movie critic. However, I do some favors, and these often come in the form of points that I hand to certain groups due to the artistic bravery. Rigormortis, the production company that has been my prime example of how money does not need to motivate filmmaking, gets several of these points each time.
I still, however, will not go easy on them.
They recently sent me a VHS copy of their Down with America trilogy (which begins, quite wittily, with a disclaimer that they are not trying to undermine America with the making of this film.) and I decided to spend an hour of my day watching it.
In the famous lines of many martyrs, I have no regrets.
Well, I do have some regrets, but that is not the point in the previous sentence. The point of it was that Down with America was a film that, from a critical standpoint, did not entirely disappoint me. Sure, the risky use of VHS instead of Super 8mm or 16mm was a pain, and the natural light was one of the most annoying things about public access films, but the movie itself was fairly enjoyable.
Down with America concerns a government agent, needless murder, and a book containing everything from the Unabomber's Manifesto to the 1995 Apple Computer Profit Report. Like the previous films of Rigormortis that I have reviewed, it displays an off-kilter humor and intelligence… it succeeds in making me laugh where countless studio films fail.
The best way to see this film would be as a parody of the countless conspiracy films that we have been drowned in since the paranoia of the 80s. A dying movement from the day they started, these paranoid `thrillers' had the government always covering up something and had the same favorite word: `Roswell.'
In Down with America, the line `Roswell' is highly absent.
With an about ten minute running time, Down with America effortlessly sidesteps every cliché that the conspiracy films fell into, makes jokes at them at the same time, and provides us with funny and memorable characters. Again, I have seen movies that have gone on two hours with characters I couldn't care less about.
The film, as previously stated, concerns a Federal Agent (Peter Roach), an obsessed librarian (Meri Stevens), a Mystery Man (Joe Kaczkowski), and two people obsessed with silence in the library (Robb Sherman, Kevin Flowers). The plot: a book containing the secrets of all anarchists is hidden in… A PUBLIC LIBRARY where it can be viewed by all.
From there we go into a delightful parody. The Federal Agent claims his sovereign right to alter the truth, the librarian goes on a diatribe about the sanctity of books. We spend our time laughing at fairly idiotic jokes that are performed much too well considering the lack of coaching of the cast.
Although the actors and actresses are in small roles and give a whole new meaning to `no-name', it ends up being the no-name people who do a good job, delivering better performances as comic villains than half the crap that Hollywood turns out.
For once, I don't have a URL that I know offhand to give you as to where to locate the film online. I can only say that you should find my previous reviews of L'Auto and Les X-Files and look up the Rigormortis Productions site in and of itself. It's almost as much fun as the film.
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