Rock Slyde

"Andy Dick and Patrick Warburton appear on screen in top comedic form in the Independent feature, Rock Slyde, which premiered at the AFI Dallas Film Festival this past week.

The idea for the off-beat film was inspired by the handsome director's mother, Chris Dowling noted on the red carpet, with a sly smile on his face.

"Can't you make a movie that doesn't have any violence or gratuitous sex in it," she pointedly asked the talented screenwriter one day.

The Clark Kent look-a-like rose to the occasion by penning a script that hits the funny bone more often than not.

Patrick Warburton (private dick Rock Slyde) adeptly plays the role to the hilt - with a droll unaffected approach, mind you - that ultimately takes a poke at the film noir genre it sprang from.

Andy Dick - who sports a beard in this part - is hilarious in a zany role that is decidedly off- beat.

Part of the reason the cult figure the TV personality plays on screen succeeds so admirably is due to inpeccable timing on the part of Dick and his innate ability to create a character that resonates with its own truth within a specific context.

Unfortunately, Rock Slyde - the movie - lags at times.

Although Dowling is a competent writer with original ideas, the script should have been tightened a smidgen, to ensure lazy minds didn't wander a tad.

In fact, when I exchanged notes with a couple of other industry-types, they admitted they - too - started to snooze a little about three-quarters of the way through Slyde beneath the floodlights.

In its current incarnation, the full-length feature tends to lurch and burp a bit; then, roll over and die a second or two, before unexpecedly picking up again as it races to a hilarious finale.

In many respects the entertaining piece of fluff is uneven - but fixable - in my estimation.

For a low-budget feature (shot on an old soundstage at Sunset Blvd & Gower Street in the heart of Hollywood) that wrapped in a six short creatively-stuffed weeks, I found the production values to be surprisingly rich.

Warburton and Dick also manage to rise above the material and make it an inviting popcorn movie film buffs on the edge of the mainstream may be able to warm up to.

Teens may guffaw a lot, too, quite possibly transforming the little-movie-that-could into an unexpected hit come the lazy days of summer.

Of course, such a scenario is only within reach, if distribution is forthcoming, and a visionary studio backs Rock Slyde with eye-catching promos geared toward the market, of course!

1 thumb & 1 half-knuckle up!"

-Julian Ayrs, The Tattler

First off I will say that the story didn't really have much going for it. So at that point I thought it would be hard to keep myself interested. But there was one thing that no matter what happened in the movie, always had me smiling. It was Patrick Warburton. He is an actor that has a very distinct voice that you will always remember. Every time he talked in the movie, I was laughing. Some of the dialog he used was cheesy, but worked since he had such a funny voice. There were some other interesting characters, but they were not as good. Andy Dick was the so called bad guy. It is hard to like Andy Dick as certain characters. He seemed to fit as this one though. The girl that was working for Warburton was Elaine Hendrix. I didn't like her as the character she was. She was a bit annoying. So overall if it wasn't for Warburton and some of his interesting and funny lines, I am not sure if I would of liked the movie at all.

"Patrick Warburton and Andy Dick ham up the detective genre. Warburton is Rock Slyde, a Smart Car-driving private dick so droll, so disaffected that he can't be bothered with come-ons from Rena Sofer's beautiful dame when he takes on her case to find out who's tailing her. Dick plays the wacky leader of The Cult of Bartology, whose main objective is to take over Slyde's office space to gain control of the building.

Director Chris Dowling takes full advantage of the genre's wide-open spaces for gags and comic allusions to film noir's past. And as the screenwriter, he chooses his shots and doesn't let the script fall into a punny mess.

Cameos from Jason Alexander, Jerry Cantrell, Brian Bosworth and others add to the fun. And Andy's real life followers will enjoy seeing him as a brunette."

-Marc Lee

Saw this recently, and absolutely loved it! Cannot believe this is the directors first effort, shows the marks of an established and confident director...great script, great actors, hilarious set pieces - a movie to watch over again and again in order to pick up all the little throw away gags. Andy Dick was fantastic, and as has been mentioned in other reviews, Patrick Warburton plays the title character as a perfect straight comedy character.

Mixing two great story strands works well and keeps you interested all the way through, along with the great sight gags. Will have to look out for more from Mr Dowling in the future!

"A laugh-out-loud send-up of Hollywood...and the film noir detective genre, "Rock Slyde" starts with what many big Hollywood films lack — a really good and very funny script.

Patrick Warburton as Rock Slyde, a cognitively clueless detective whose nose for crime is better than his noggin, was sad eyed, pitch perfect and endearing. Resisting the advances of femme fatale Rena Sofer's delicious Sara Lee because of a childhood spent watching "Soul Train" (but that's another story), Slyde faces down adversary cult leader Andy Dick (Bart of Bartology) to save his holdout office space in the ever-expanding Bartology building and rescue his brainwashed secretary. And if you think that sentence is pointedly pithy, "Slyde" is even more crammed full with over-the-top winks, asides and jokes including a cameo by Jason Alexander as a Jewish U.S. postal carrier enamored of Slyde's turn as an actor in a gay porn musical (but that too is another story).

"Rock Slyde" performances, cinematography, original score and songs (if you don't leave the theater singing, "swashbuckle me, swashbuckle, down on your knees," you're probably dead), and script are brilliant and of a piece — a carefully crafted piece that is a testament to creativity on the cheap — brilliance without big budgets. "

• Idyllwild Town Crier