Geekin'

This movie grabs the essence of the geek social structure: strong bonds created by being social outcasts. It means you have the freedom to express yourself and explore wild imaginations without the fear of prejudice. But all that can be overcome with the power of a cute girl.

Digitribe Production's first film is a polished, well put together feature film that will connect with anyone that has had woman come between two friends. It is also chock full of role-playing, and does great justice to the game without falling back to typical stereotypes. Funny and moving, this film proves that Digitribe has a lot to offer and knows how to connect with their audience. Considering that no one on the crew had ever worked on a feature film before, Digitribe Productions will be a company to watch for more great movies.

The idea has promise - a movie diving into the social structure of geeks. There have been others (the amusing at times FREE ENTERPRISE) but none made by geeks for geeks. I'm usually a sucker for films about sub-cultures and the people who make them up...and I'm always game for a DIY film made with more love and passion than most soulless Hollywood productions...

Unfortunately, GEEKIN falls very short. Sure, the acting is not that great (the all too obvious blocking makes every scene feel too staged and awkward) but the movie does have a pretty polished look, so from a technical standpoint, it's not bad.

But the movies starts well enough - with the beginning of a sweet geek romance between a shy guy and his internet friend (who he has just met for the first time). But soon after, the story goes off the rails...

My single biggest complaint about the movie are the characters. At first, they do highly questionable things (I'm treading lightly here to avoid spoilers)...but then they move into flat-out amoral stunts that had me floored. These were not a writer's bid for interesting, flawed characters - these were sleazy acts that scorched any tokens of sympathy or likability you had for the characters.

By the end of the movie there was not a single character I could relate to anymore or even understand on any level. Their actions were so completely disgusting that you were left wondering why anyone would want to care what happened to them. Really - it's that bad. It would be one thing if the movie took these immoral characters and explored the consequences of their actions in an intelligent way. But that is not what GEEKIN does.

It's difficult to write about this movie...it's not all bad. I wanted to like it, I really did - and there are points and places I truly enjoyed. But the jewels of good storytelling are buried in the manure of unhealthy behavior and the appalling notion that the filmmakers see nothing wrong in what their characters do to each other.

To the movie's credit - they end on at least a logical note. The DVD has an alternate ending which would have been happier, but also false considering everything that had happened.

Movies like this are frustrating. You can't write them off as simply "bad" but you can't very well recommend them either. While I'm not sorry I saw it, I can't say I will watch it again.