Crime Fiction (2007)

Director:

Will Slocombe

Writer:

Jonathan Eliot (writer)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

Some people would kill for a good story.

Plot:

Will you kill for a good story? If you are James Cooper, a 28 year old copy editor with dreams of literary stardom...

Plot Keywords:

Chicago | Sag | Comedy Central | Bakkedahl | University

Cast

Jonathan Eliot	...	James Cooper
Christian Stolte	...	Don Lee Boone
Amy Sloan	...	Hilary
Yasen Peyankov	...	Komissarzhevsky
Katrina Lenk	...	Lauren
Dan Bakkedahl	...	Crazy Caller
Deborah Leydig	...	Susann Fulton
Tonray Ho	...	Sandra
Franette Liebow	...	Hilary's Mother
David Boettcher	...	Hilary's Father
Paul Dichter	...	Digger
Ramiro Castro	...	Bernie
Jack Tamburri	...	Action Geek
Courtney Reed	...	Candy 1
Sarah-Doe Osborne	...	Candy #2

Runtime:

USA:90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

Downtown, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Crime Fiction Pictures LLC

Good narrative work

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This movie was written by a skillful writer - later on I knew the actor is the writer and also a PhD literature student, and the most funny and contra-ironic thing is that the script is good, but the movie itself... well. Elliot might have to deal with the good and the bad luck that haunts the main character (the writer within and outside the plot).

You can tell the writer has some knowledge of structuralism, post-structuralism, Tzvetan Todorov's theories and this kind of text. It is a fun exercise on how a narrative is swollen by a wider one, and by a wider one and so on. The character development is a bit poor, however: James becomes the stereotypical successful writer, the older writer is a cliché himself all the time, and not in the most funny way.

There are some details that add up on the story. Billy: YES. That one was way cool, and the retro ambiance and music partially work, although they seem misplaced among a stir of aesthetic experimentations that absolutely don't blend: short cuts, then camera-on-the-shoulder, then flashes, then yellow light in old hotels... better stick to one language only. Actually, there are a couple of scenes where the cinematography was great (the hotel couch with telephone ringing). But it was spoiled by this absurd long-haired blond hotel bell boy. Whaat?! Although some dialogs were a bit cheesy ("the world is a box of sh**!!!!"), they might have worked on a better direction. The directing really wasn't good: the low budget makes it difficult, certainly. The scene were the girl pretends to be locked out of her room was so mechanically spoken and lacking of sensuality that was a turn-off, for example.

All in all, I'd recommend it as an exercise on narratives, even if it does not develop the potential that enclosing narratives may have (Italo Calvino, 1001 Nights, Jorge Luis Borges). But it's fun if you can imagine how the script was written and what the film s trying to say besides its flaws. I might think this theme might even be somewhat postmodern cinema.