JoshB-2

Silver Man isn't a big screen box office smash. It's an independent film made in Canada, but it still boasts beautiful locations, a great story, and some excellent acting.

Firstly, let me just say that Eugene Levy (American Pie) absolutely steals the show with his performance as a Jewish gangster who is conflicted about killing people on the Sabbath or before his son's upcoming Bar Mitzvah.

The story centres around a guy who calls himself Silver Man (Paul Popowich). He works the promenade as a busking violinist, his skin covered from head to toe in an eery silver gleam. It's not makeup, however, and Silver Man has carried this abnormality his entire life, always being judged not for who he is, but what he looks like. Silver Man falls in love with the girl (literally) next door to his apartment, Tivoli (Audrey Lupke) who is miserable in her relationship with Jake (Derik Hamilton), her violent, abusive, but strangely charismatic (to her, anyway) boyfriend.

With an impressive cast that also includes Joe Pantiolano (The Fugitive, The Matrix), Daniel Baldwin, and Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), Silver Man is a charming little love story with a bit of action, and is definitely worth seeing.

I don't know what the previous reviewer was expecting from this low-budget thriller when he reviewed it; I think he overlooked many of the great qualities of this fine little film. David Warner and Louise Fletcher are such fine actors that it is just a joy to watch them.

As for the story, it is a clever, almost Hitchcock-like tale, always keeping us guessing right up until the end as to who the killer actually is. All eyes point to the main character, a young man named Johnny La Spada who has gone to a mansion in Santa Barbara, California, to find his birth-mother. He has been seduced by an unhappily married older woman (Barbara Carerra), who is both deceptive and beautiful.

The film has a number of fairly graphic nude love scenes, but I feel that their use here is not gratuitous; rather it is just one of many techniques that give this film a very European look and feel. There is an exploration into the oft-examined lives of the ridiculously rich and just how much some people will try to get away with.

If you're looking for a fun 90 minute ride that enables you to play a part in the investigation of the questions in the story then Peter Foldy's "Tryst" is definitely worth checking out.

This film seems to be the 80s version of American Pie: Four loser virgins who want to get laid make a pact to help each other and go about finding girls to screw. If you look at it closely, the characters are even similar and there's the one guy with the girlfriend who thinks that sex is the only thing important to him.

Anyway, the girls look great and there are heaps of funny scenes worth catching, especially at the end. So if you haven't seen it, check it out.