Fishing with Gandhi (1998)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Gabe Weisert

Writers:

William Birdthistle (writer)
James Reichmuth (writer)

Release Date:

10 November 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Danno is hitching his way down the California coast, trying to forget his mother's recent marriage to his uncle...

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

John Reichmuth	...	Gil
James Reichmuth	...	Roy
Dan Klein	...	Danno
Gabe Weisert	...	Stephen
William Birdthistle	...	Giles
Christina Milano	...	Bronte
Dan Hunt	...	Chris

Runtime:

69 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Half Moon Bay, California, USA

Company:

EYG Films

Quotes:

Roy: In the end the Earth just keeps on turning every day, and no one knows when it's going to stop, or why it's heading for the Sun.

Movie Connections:

Followed by Cow Monkey (2001)

Ode to the joys of corndogs and red necks

If you're the sort of person who thinks of the WWF as soap opera for rednecks, or who finds the esteem with which Nascar is held by a certain segment of the population to be mildly amusing, you might love this movie. Imagine Beavis and Butthead as young adults, except that their cultural horizons have been formed by monster truck pulls, hoedowns, the timeless art of Pit Bull breeding, pickup trucks, corndogs, chewing tobacco, and you have an incomplete, but somewhat descriptive, portrait of Roy and Gill, the two main characters of this film. They're such stupid but affable good old boys.

Gill and Roy pick up a hitchhiker in their `brand new' (it's several years old, but to Roy and Gill, it's `brand new') Toyota pickup. The truck overheats every 20 miles or so, which gives the three time to get acquainted. The hitchhiker is longhaired hippie type who's returning from his mother's wedding. Roy and Gill think he's `touched in the head' at first, because he doesn't talk much (Roy and Gill talk completely hilarious rubbish non-stop); but they bond with him when they learn that the hitchhiker is returning from a wedding where his mother married his uncle. Roy and Gill immediately connect with the man, warmly offering him a corndog; and, instead of referring to him as `Led Zeppelin,' address him by his first name. It's a touching moment.

The unsuspecting hitchhiker undergoes a personal transformation as he travels with Roy and Gill. It's so heartwarming to watch. Why, at the outset, he has about as much force of personality as a mouse fart. By the end, he can mess with a person's head along with the best of them. His neck is much redder than it was at the outset, which, in this context, it a very good thing. And he has a gun.

I like this movie so much, I plan to buy it. It bent me sideways several times from sheer uncontrollable laughter, forcing me to rewind for lines I had missed.