This short starts with a very simple premise and uses it to build suspense quickly. An innocent-bystander driver is trapped in a static traffic jam with an armed mafioso. It's a very effective concept since the small, confined space builds tension and urgency (so the mob boss' arbitrary time frame of an hour seems a step away from the reality, and unnecessary).
Probably unnecessary too it the second mafioso, who just becomes inconvenient when we need a reason for the boss to get rid of him for most of the film. There are a lot of little touches that help make it a tense sequence, though, and the confinement gives the opportunity for some good moments of philosophizing between the two unlikely car-mates.
But when the twist comes most of the way through, the just isn't enough running time to contextualize it and make it effective for me. A brief flashback tries to do that, but there's not enough to work with, and the "should-have-seen it-coming" impact just doesn't have time to develop. My the time Maxim's Girl arrives she has almost literally nothing to do, and just highlights this.
Without (presumably, since this seems to have been a film-school piece) the luxury of choosing a longer running time to develop the plot that swoops in, I think the filmmaker should have kept it simpler to avoid such major elements being crammed into the last couple of minutes. But it's still certainly worth a look.
Probably unnecessary too it the second mafioso, who just becomes inconvenient when we need a reason for the boss to get rid of him for most of the film. There are a lot of little touches that help make it a tense sequence, though, and the confinement gives the opportunity for some good moments of philosophizing between the two unlikely car-mates.
But when the twist comes most of the way through, the just isn't enough running time to contextualize it and make it effective for me. A brief flashback tries to do that, but there's not enough to work with, and the "should-have-seen it-coming" impact just doesn't have time to develop. My the time Maxim's Girl arrives she has almost literally nothing to do, and just highlights this.
Without (presumably, since this seems to have been a film-school piece) the luxury of choosing a longer running time to develop the plot that swoops in, I think the filmmaker should have kept it simpler to avoid such major elements being crammed into the last couple of minutes. But it's still certainly worth a look.
