John Pollono's Small Engine Repair might have been shocking, clever, or surprising a decade ago, as it's glued so heavily to social media and millennial vs. Old school modes of thought.
Today, though, all that novelty is gone and what is left is not substantial in either dialogue or emotional heft to garner any sort of engagement with audiences not satisfied with surface "thrills".
I will only say the "shocking twist" is very enmeshed in Web Culture but even if you subtract that angle, it's not something you don't see coming. More accurately, you "don't want" to see it coming because it's been done to death, and in films much older than the Internet. You keep hoping Pollono's a better writer than that, but he's just not.
That isn't to say his performance, and that of the rest of the cast, aren't very good to excellent in spots, but his script never goes deep enough to generate any genuine engagement through plot or surprising character development.
Small Engine Repair, despite having a great title, is about as deep as a wading pool. It revolves around three best friends from childhood, stuck in the same New Hampshire small town, whose bad behavior and generally idiocy keep them trapped in various man-child modes of entropy. They blow up at each other frequently, raz each other pitilessly, then one day Pollono's character calls them together for a celebratory night after a period of estrangement that takes several dark violent turns.
Who did Pollono write this for? It's an odd blend of a Reservoir Dogs-esque crime thriller and a wannabe David Mamet takedown on toxic masculinity. But Dogs brought action and surprising plot/structure, not to mention sharp memorable dialogue, certainly not at a Mamet level of rhythmic brilliance and cadence.
The biggest problem with "Repair" is that none of the characters are remotely original or appealing, nor are their plights. They're pretty much stereotypes of lower-class men stuck in the same poverty-driven cycle of a tech-driven world that's passed them by. Do you *really* want to spend onscreen-time with guys who routinely go to jail, make off-color gay jokes, get in bar fights, have the active interests of 12-year olds, and can't even think of creative insults for one another? These guys aren't exotic, they're just boring. The whole film feels "forced" as in "this is the way we are, and aren't we honest for exposing our bland subculture, warts and all"? Maybe it *is* "real" but it doesn't make the movie any more appealing.
Despite what others have said about it being talky... there really isn't ENOUGH dialogue in this movie (or enough good dialogue) to generate honest tension or to make you think these guys are above lunkhead- level.
You don't have to have affluent characters for them to be intriguing. Look at the interest Michael Cimino stoked in the very brief scenes "back home" in the Deer Hunter. Those guys weren't going to set the world on fire either, but they were about 30 times more complex than the guys in Small Engine Repair. Yeah, I know the actors were world class but the guys in "Repair" aren't bad actors.
On the opposite social spectrum end, the character of Chad isn't fleshed out well, either. As with the rest of the cast, I'm sure there are tons of rich frat boys that are this vapid, but wouldn't it have been interesting if at least one person transcended the stereotype? Someone unexpected would have been even better.
But none do, and what's most irritating is that the large studio producers behind this movie that thought it worthy enough to film, probably love it because it confirms those trashy cut-outs of "these people" in their minds. In that respect, it shares a lot of bad karma with movies like The Boondock Saints which tried to rip-off Tarantino without going the extra mile by giving us an original plot or unforgettable people --- not people to root for, just people that you care about, enough to not bore you to death.
Today, though, all that novelty is gone and what is left is not substantial in either dialogue or emotional heft to garner any sort of engagement with audiences not satisfied with surface "thrills".
I will only say the "shocking twist" is very enmeshed in Web Culture but even if you subtract that angle, it's not something you don't see coming. More accurately, you "don't want" to see it coming because it's been done to death, and in films much older than the Internet. You keep hoping Pollono's a better writer than that, but he's just not.
That isn't to say his performance, and that of the rest of the cast, aren't very good to excellent in spots, but his script never goes deep enough to generate any genuine engagement through plot or surprising character development.
Small Engine Repair, despite having a great title, is about as deep as a wading pool. It revolves around three best friends from childhood, stuck in the same New Hampshire small town, whose bad behavior and generally idiocy keep them trapped in various man-child modes of entropy. They blow up at each other frequently, raz each other pitilessly, then one day Pollono's character calls them together for a celebratory night after a period of estrangement that takes several dark violent turns.
Who did Pollono write this for? It's an odd blend of a Reservoir Dogs-esque crime thriller and a wannabe David Mamet takedown on toxic masculinity. But Dogs brought action and surprising plot/structure, not to mention sharp memorable dialogue, certainly not at a Mamet level of rhythmic brilliance and cadence.
The biggest problem with "Repair" is that none of the characters are remotely original or appealing, nor are their plights. They're pretty much stereotypes of lower-class men stuck in the same poverty-driven cycle of a tech-driven world that's passed them by. Do you *really* want to spend onscreen-time with guys who routinely go to jail, make off-color gay jokes, get in bar fights, have the active interests of 12-year olds, and can't even think of creative insults for one another? These guys aren't exotic, they're just boring. The whole film feels "forced" as in "this is the way we are, and aren't we honest for exposing our bland subculture, warts and all"? Maybe it *is* "real" but it doesn't make the movie any more appealing.
Despite what others have said about it being talky... there really isn't ENOUGH dialogue in this movie (or enough good dialogue) to generate honest tension or to make you think these guys are above lunkhead- level.
You don't have to have affluent characters for them to be intriguing. Look at the interest Michael Cimino stoked in the very brief scenes "back home" in the Deer Hunter. Those guys weren't going to set the world on fire either, but they were about 30 times more complex than the guys in Small Engine Repair. Yeah, I know the actors were world class but the guys in "Repair" aren't bad actors.
On the opposite social spectrum end, the character of Chad isn't fleshed out well, either. As with the rest of the cast, I'm sure there are tons of rich frat boys that are this vapid, but wouldn't it have been interesting if at least one person transcended the stereotype? Someone unexpected would have been even better.
But none do, and what's most irritating is that the large studio producers behind this movie that thought it worthy enough to film, probably love it because it confirms those trashy cut-outs of "these people" in their minds. In that respect, it shares a lot of bad karma with movies like The Boondock Saints which tried to rip-off Tarantino without going the extra mile by giving us an original plot or unforgettable people --- not people to root for, just people that you care about, enough to not bore you to death.