Little Athens

Saw this movie tonight as part of the Indianapolis International Film Festival. Had been looking forward to this one, largely due to the cast and the fact that these types of stories usually are told more realistically by independent filmmakers.

Unfortunately, I found the acting to be almost embarrassingly bad, the characters had no depth and no redeeming qualities, and the running time of 109 minutes felt more like 3 hours. I kept waiting for something to happen, and waiting and waiting.

Now, there are 2 positives this film has going for it. The soundtrack is actually quite good, and includes songs by SuperTramp, Radiohead, Ima Robot, The Vacation and The Walkmen just to name a few.

The cast is definitely attractive and there are some new faces that definitely show some promise. I was surprised to see Shawn Hatosy (The Faculty) in yet another throwaway role. After The Faculty, I actually thought he would become one of the major young Hollywood players, but he keeps turning up in films that in my opinion are a waste of his talents.

I really wanted to like this film and then tell everyone I knew to go see it, but now all I can say is save your money and use that 109 minutes to do something else....you will never get them back.

Just a side note: There were about 50 people of mixed ages in the audience. Two separate couple got up and left within the first 10 minutes, I have no idea if it was the film or something else. The person that I went with, actually enjoyed the movie quite a bit, so it may just that it didn't appeal to me. Unlike other films during the festival, there was no applause after the film and only a handful of attendees stayed for the credits.

I'll start with the things that didn't work;

Jorge Garcia – I am a fan of his character in "Lost", and I have respect for the job he does for that series. In Little Athens he plays a person of Spanish decent (I believe Mexican), thus he has to use a "Mexican" accent for the duration of the film. To say his accent is bad would be a complete understatement. His accent was so bad, I couldn't believe his character at all. It honestly resulted in the worst acting performance I saw during the entire Toronto Film Festival. At first I thought he was trying to mock Mexicans, until his character stated that he was in fact a Mexican. What makes it worse is that his characters ethnicity HAS NO BEARING ON THE FILM AT ALL!

The Ending – Sometimes when people try too hard, it results in something that no longer feels natural, but forced. That's what I felt happened here. When watching a film like Amorres Perros or Magnolia, separate stories found in the film intersect for a brief moment. When doing so, they do so well. I believe this is the type of ending Little Athens tried to come up with, but it fell short. The move is actually a few separate stories/segments running in parallel that in turn meet in the end. For one, I'm surprised they tried to take the character that had the least amount of emotional draw and place the most unfortunate event on them. What makes for a good dramatic scene is the fact that the viewer becomes attached to a specific character, thus in a sense "pulling" for that character or hoping for that characters well being. The one question I wanted to ask the director but couldn't (I had to leave) was why he chose a character with such little dialog and impact on the film to have this fate?

But wait, I'm not done with that "surprise" just yet...

This "surprise" is apparently a "surprise" because the character is affected at that moment by an incident from one of the other stories in the film. This is where the director tried to "bring it all together". The problem is it was forced, and would have been better if common sense was used. To make it worse, the scene prior to this actually had it set up so that characters fate could have been tied back to family issues, and something that occurred earlier on in the film! It would actually have been a stronger message! Not only that, but ALL THE CHARACTERS could have had the EXACT SAME END RESULT if gone the other direction. The fact that the "simple" end would have made more sense and actually had a stronger overall message is why I call the end forced. I don't think the director wanted me to laugh at the moment, but I had to.

This feeling of being forced doesn't only stop here, and that is part of the problem. They always had to go that one extra step to the point where it becomes laughable. They just had to make situations "that much worse" The reason for why the police came to the party at the end for example. They could have come just because of the fact there was a party, or from the loud music. It would have worked just fine. Instead they had to find something from one of the segments to make it work, and again "bring it all together".

At a high level, I'd probably suggest DJ Qualls did the best overall job. They decided to be very typical and pair the skinny guy with the big guy (they paired him with Jorge Garcia), but I could still believe in his character, even when Jorge Garcia was on the screen.

It seemed to me that the film stock changed at some point in the movie. I don't know how to confirm this, but I'd swear they went down to a lower stock at the end. The granular look was amazing, and for parts of the ending that did work, it was a nice touch. It was probably the highlight of the film for me. The fact the stock changed.

At a high level it would be easy to make a statement that with the cast it had, it underachieved. There were moments when the acting wasn't convincing even outside of Jorge Garcia, but I'm not so sure that was the problem. The real problem was the end. It may be a result of the fact people are marketing this film through it's end, I'm not sure. Even the program director at the TIFF suggested "Wait until you see the end!!", leaving the audience in anticipation. Maybe the end didn't live up to its hype, but I can't believe I'd respect this end even without expectations or anticipation. It was just that forced. Sadly, this movie could have been such a better overall result with two changes, one of them being very minor;

#1 Remove the fake accent from Jorge Garcia

#2 Use the more obvious events for some of the characters, especially the "surprise" at the end

You could have had the exact same fate for every character. You could have had practically the same movie outside of 3 minutes worth of dialog to be honest. You could have re-shot a 10 second scene in which the camera pans a character, and it would have made for a much stronger message...

Unfortunately for me it doesn't work, and the people I attended this with felt the same. An average film with an ending that was forced.

The movie opens with "The following events happened in Ahtens but could happen anywhere"

I don't think so, unless you try really hard ;)

Was lucky enough to catch LITTLE ATHENS last night and think we're looking at an exciting young director. The film is constrained by its small budget but punches largely above its weight due to the ingenuity of its Zyber and the talent in the young, and I have to say, hot, cast.

To compare it to the Outsiders perhaps puts too much weight on its shoulders and certainly the flavour is very different, but I felt like I was watching the beginning of a new set of burgeoning careers and it was tremendously exciting.

If you have seen this film, please add your comments, I'd be very interested to read them.

On a final note, the music on this project is phenomenal.

(I work in the trade but have no affiliation to this film - to allay the fears of some of the other critics here).

But don't listen to what I have to say, see it and make up your own mind.

KilledCat

It takes a bit for the development of each actors story but once that happens the movie takes right off. 2nd half is GREAT!!

I have to start by saying it took me a solid hour to figure out that Athens is the town the movie takes place in. That being said, this movie's got big intentions and they are realized. I saw it with a great crowd, so the mood was cool. I won't ruin it, but the scene where the Jimmy character steals drugs from his dealer is classic. Really really good, and the female characters are super real which is something I don't think most movies have. My friends and I talked about the movie for an hour afterward. The guys are great, especially Michale Pena and John Patrick Amedori. Eric Szmanda has some very funny scenes as well which is great after seeing him in the same role every week on CSI. I loved the way the movie looks.