Let me say that I was QUITE impressed overall with The Deserter. I thought it was shot well, with nice clean visuals. The music was great and complemented each scene. The blend of ragtimey comedy music with fife-and-drum tunes worked strangely well! I have newfound respect for Borgman as a physical and facial comic actor. The bits with the drumsticks killed me--and it was mostly that starting pose, with the sticks up by his temples. I don't know why, but that NEVER got old. All the physical stuff worked. (And dare I say, bravo to Borgman for hanging by one foot off a cliff....) The downsides for me were two-fold. First, the "battle" scenes are too long by several minutes. When the first one started, I thought it was supposed to be that his regiment was leaving him behind; it took a while before I realized that it was two armies going to war. Later, the scenes simply ran too long--I found myself really wanting to get back to the Deserter. I grew tired of watching fat re-en-actors milling about and started picking out little things like the guy wearing sunglasses... My other nit-pick is that I lost track of what was going on in the third reel. I was never sure when the Deserter was with his captors and when he wasn't. The cuts got jumpier than they had been in the first two reels, and I actually got a bit disoriented. For the most part, though, Borgman has my admiration and congratulations. It's an engaging little film, VERY reminiscent of good old silents, with plenty of comedic nuances to reward sharp-eyed viewers. It generates honest laughter, and I think he did a remarkable job of bringing the character to life. I genuinely look forward to his next one.
Review of The Deserter
