A Small Fortune

I wanted to like this movie more than I did, but there's just so much dumb by so many people in this movie that you just can't reward it too highly. Honestly, absolute stupidity abounds.

A man who is struggling financially with an expectant wife trolls the beach off rural Canada for seaweed to sell. One night he notices money embedded in one of the piles. He then finds an entire bag of money and decides to keep it. The next day a boat washes up with bloody bills in it. For some reason, he decides to set the boat on fire which brings the attention of the police, who notice money sticking out of the seaweed pile right next to it. Everyone knows who harvests seaweed, so an obvious connection is made. In the meantime, a vicious crook is looking for the money and his friend who had been in the boat. Then the seaweed guy is riding along the beach and finds the body of the friend and his response is to take the body away and bury it! WHY?? At this point pretty much everyone in the movie makes stupid decisions which get people killed and make NO sense and neither does the ending.

Now, had I not been so annoyed by the complete dumpster fire of foolishness that is the script, I'd have given this a much better rating. Because everything else is pretty well done. Great cinematography, most of the acting was well done, pleasing score, good direction. Give it an actual decent script and this would have been a 6 or 7, but I'm afraid the best I can do is a 5. I'd like to see what the director can do with better material.

Kevin Doucette (Stephen Oates) and Sam Doucette (Liane Balaban) are a married couple struggling to survive in PEI. Sam is pregnant. Kevin harvests seaweed in a traditional way. It would be kind to say that it's a dying industry. The money is not worth the effort. Sam keeps urging him to move west to make some cash, but he refuses to leave home. Out of the blue, he finds money scattered in his seaweed and then a duffle bag full of cash.

This is a small Canadian indie in the mold of other small crime dramas where the down and out characters find a bag of cash. It is interesting that Kevin is still harvesting seaweed with a horse. Burning the boat is a really dumb idea. Kevin is not the sharpest tool in the tool box. He's not like a cartoon idiot either. There are so many foreseeable problems that he runs into head-first. That's not a problem. Dumb lead characters are often frustrating, but still interesting. I just wouldn't want dumb writing. My main issue with the story is that Kevin should be dead. At a certain point, he should be killed or at the very least, tortured to an inch of his life. I get that it's hard to kill the lead before the end of the movie. Maybe that's the better move.

Saw this at a festival featuring Atlantic Canadian films, and in that context, ie rooting for the home team, I found this film to be quite a beautiful poem to specific place - rural PEI. The cinematography is terrific - I felt the pull of the sea and the way of life the main character loves. The film maker lays out a number of great questions - what would you do if you were poor and found bag of money? What's the difference between enforcing the law and maintaining the peace? But the film maker doesn't explore these questions in any depth. Instead it turns into a conventional and cliched crime caper. I agree with the other reviewers that the main character makes way too many dumb decisions for a guy who doesn't seem that dumb, and there are too many contrivances for the sake of moving the pilot along. A missed opportunity - in the hands of a stronger writer this could have been a rich exploration of some compelling questions.

This film is awful on so many levels, but most of all it just doesn't make sense. Like so many modern bad films it relies on advancing the plot by having characters do the stupidest, most brainless things possible. The lead actor might as well be playing someone mentally challenged. Actions take place in this film that are completely unrealistic. At times it seems as if the film makers want to take it in the direction of a dark comedy, but it is never funny. It's starts off kind of slow and boring and then dives right into absurdity. This was so bad , it was painful to watch, especially since they seemed to be going for something heart-warming in the end, but these characters were so bland and so fake , the kind that only exist in bad movies, that you won't care. I didn't care, I just wanted it to end already.

This is writer and director Adam Perry's second-only full length feature film, and although far from perfect, for a newb filmmaker, it's better than some disappointments I've seen lately from seasoned filmmakers.

Perry's directing was actually impressive, to the point you'd think it was a Coen brothers' production. The story did have some plot and technical issues, and the pacing was a little slow, but the screenplay was tight, original and very well laid out and shot. A little more action and suspense would've gone a long way, and I would've loved to see more of the beautiful PEI landscapes.

All casting and performances were spot on, although I felt old man Omer was a little too much. The cinematography was great, and the score amazing, especially for a low budget indie B-film. It's a very decent 91 mins one-time watch, especially considered this was a novice low budget film. It's a well deserved 6.5 rounded up to a 7/10 from me.