Review of Kalamity

Where to begin, where to begin? Well, let me preface this by saying I tried watching this once before and couldn't get through it. Recently, however, I was visiting my buddy who lives in Alexandria, VA and I happened to remember that Kalamity was filmed in Fairfax, VA. My buddy grew up around there and lived there for a number of years. I thought, hey, if nothing else, maybe he'll see some familiar sites or, perhaps, someone he knows. Also, I was thinking that maybe I just needed to give this movie another shot. Perhaps I wasn't in the right headspace when I watched this the first time. Well, it was 60 minutes of pure tedium that would have been better served watching paint dry. Wait, you're saying, it's a 90 minute movie, not 60. Quite true, but we watched for about 50 minutes and then had to start fast forwarding to see if there was anything to sustain our interest. No such luck. We were teased early on by a great scene where Stanley popped Christian in the face with a hockey puck. We would soon learn that this would be the highlight of the entire movie. The acting was stilted in some scenes and OTT (over the top) in others. The university in Ohio looked suspiciously like George Mason University. And, come on, you end the movie on a traffic signal changing from red to green? What does that even mean?! Sounds like art for art's sake to me. Lastly one of the characters made a crack about a "slut from Manassas." My grandmother lives in Manassas! I need to stop here and calm down before I can finish this review...

Okay, If this movie could be saved (and that's a big "if"), I'd reedit it so there are only these scenes: 1) Billy comes home from college, 2) Stanley decks Christian with the hockey puck, 3) Billy has one of his girlfriend hallucinations in his Volvo, 4) Christian gets gunshot by Stanley, 5) Billy confronts Stanley, 6) The traffic light changes from red to green. That's it. Roll credits.