8 Minutes Idle

8 Minutes Idle is a micro budget feature film set in Bristol. I applaud low budget British films that tend to show a lot of commitment and love just to get it made and tenacity to attract a decent cast who are presumably working for next to nothing.

However the key is to have an exciting script that takes an audience to a journey and they care about the story and characters. The journey can be of the mind, something to make you think rather than something where money is thrown on the screen but has an empty shell like many bigger budget Hollywood films.

Here we follow Dan (Tom Hughes) thrown out of his house and moves with his cat to his place of work where he secretly squats in the ceiling above the toilets in a dull call centre where everyone's job is precarious.

Dan falls in love with co-worker Teri (Ophelia Lovibond) but is also attracted to their horrible boss (Montserrat Lombard.) The film is an adaptation of a novel and is supposedly a comedy that had the potential to be a satirical commentary on the subject of office workplaces during harsh economic times but instead has little of interest to say and is plodding and slow. Some more time and money on the script and interesting characters would had been a start.