A Small Fortune

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.

You have a married couple financially strapped for cash expecting a child until the husband finds a bag of money that washed up on the shore. Instead of playing it cool and not doing anything to bring any attention to himself, like a fool the husband does just the opposite which leads the bad guy who's money it is right to him. One of those films depicting a person who doesn't know how to play it cool when they find some money and ruins it and brings unnecessary attention to themselves and the ones they love. Moral is, whenever you find money, don't be an idiot like this guy and bring any unnecessary attention to yourself and keep your mouth shut.

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.

Every now and then a smart little caper film with intriguing twists and turns pops up out of nowhere to pleasantly surprise its audience. This is definitely NOT that film.

The story has an auspicious start, with a hook that offers promise for a real thrill ride. But it fizzles out quickly, thanks to a dumb script peopled by dumb characters.

Every single character in this movie makes the most idiotic choice in every situation. Apparently the writer-director couldn't think of clever ways to drive the story, so he opted to have them bungle whatever they were doing at every critical turn.

The main character is the biggest moron in the movie. He makes moves so dumb that his story should have ended with his painful demise halfway through the second act. The only thing that kept the story going is that the two villains opposing him are also incredibly stupid.

If you're in the mood for a stupid-fest, there's plenty to feast on here.