User Reviews

A wealthy young philanthropist eases his guilty conscience by helping the homeless using reprogrammed automated bank tellers, with not altogether happy results. One of the few movies to even recognize the plight of urban homelessness has too many good ideas camouflaged by too much technical showmanship and self-conscious presentation: portentous confessional monologues; abstract camera tricks; and so forth. The message is sincere (despite the noticeable lack of aggressive panhandlers), but the heavy stylization seems an inappropriate way to confront the harsh realities of deprivation, and the clever solution to the imbalance of wealth has another, never mentioned flaw: generosity is easy when giving away someone else's money. First time director Eames Demetrios should be congratulated for accomplishing miracles on a shoestring budget (the cast includes several homeless non-actors), but the film could have said a lot more if he hadn't been too busy pretending to be Orson Welles.

I think the director was trying to do too much. He tried to pack so much art and politics and social comment that the movie became bogged down and top heavy. His decision to use actual homeless people, while admirable, makes for some unwatchable performances and seems to throw the whole tone out of whack. The two leads are good, but they seem to be floundering in a script and a movie that wants to do too much.

Not your typical rush out to see movie, but well worth watching. I think that Kellie McKuen's portrayal of Ashley was very well acted and hopefully we will be seeing more of her in the future. Not only was her performance top notch, but she did her own stunts as well.