Skills Like This

I found this film to be fun and engaging from beginning to end. The secret formula: interesting characters that push along the plot in unexpected directions. No amount of special effects or brilliant cinematography can beat the unique combination of honesty and criminal behavior find in the "Max" character. The supporting characters are strong as well. Max's friends Tommy and Dave balance their trio nicely, providing distinct points of view on what motivates them, why they do what they do. The film uses these three to reflect on what makes a life meaningful. With snappy editing that never feels overwrought, but keeps the story moving, I never got bored.

Just saw at the Edinburgh Ineternational Film Festival. I saw many films at the fest this year and Skills was definitely my favourite. The film is fast and furious and has really none of the usual American comedy clichés. About a bad playwright turned robber and his friends. The Tommy character has some brilliantly funny lines I sure will be repeated. All the performances are really strong. The actress playing Lucy is so natural and fun to watch. The film takes you on fast ride and you have no clue where you are going, and this is just one of it's charms. A wee bit edgy and maybe too fast an ending but I look forward to catching this one again. It is a Cool Comedy.

Every now and again,there is an exception to the fact that independently produced films are better than mainstream Hollywood fare. 'Skills Like These' is one of those exceptions. This is one of those films that tries like the dickens to be quirky & left of centre, but somehow fails. Max is a failure as a playwright. His latest bomb (called Onion Dance)has managed to clear the theater of audience members in it's opening night,plus given a major heart attack in it's one & only major backer (Max's grandfather). Max decides that he would do better trying to rob the bank across the street from the Mexican restaurant they spend most of their time at (where do they get the money to eat there,day after day?). Max decides to go on a crime spree, despite the guilt he feels for stealing other people's stuff. A romantic subplot only manages to bog this mostly unfunny shaggy dog story only further (although the female lead,Kerry Knuppe is easy on the eyes). Spencer Berger (who wrote the leaden screenplay)plays Max,a failed playwright with an impressive Afro hair-do. His two slacker friends,Tommy & Dave,are something out of a bad sitcom (Jay and Silent Bob have way more depth than these two). This is one film that is occasionally amusing,but lacks focus. Not rated by the MPAA,this film contains strong language & some mild sexual situations that would pretty much land it an 'R'. Thankfully,there are far better independent films to choose from out there.

Skills Like This won "Jury Prize" at the Jacksonville Film Festival this week. I had heard about "Skills Like This" through the film fest world, seeing it both in Denver, and again in Jacksonville. Skills Like This will be a cult classic, mark my words. I want to see this film over and over. I can't wait to share it with my friends. This film is so un-pretentious and original. It makes sense, and solves all the problems it proposes which is rare for low-budge film, it is indie film making at its best. The music, the characters, the bike! All I can say it, "I am going to need a ride" to this film again! SXSW Winner and all.

Monty Miranda's "Skills Like This" has more things wrong with it than just its ungrammatical title. In fact, it's about as innocuous as an indie comedy can be without disappearing from the screen entirely.

Set in Denver, the story centers around four buddies with widely divergent personalities who, nevertheless, remain the best of friends; Dave (Gabriel Tigerman), a straight-arrow salesman who hates his job; Tommy (Brian D. Phelan), a wisecracking slacker with an inflated view of his bad-boy toughness; and Max (Spencer Berger), an unsuccessful playwright who finds he has an aptitude for petty thievery and begins to view it as his very own form of artistic expression.

The theme of going outside the law as a means of finding one's identity as an individual is a fairly amusing one at its core, but the movie makers don't really seem to have much of an idea of how to carve an interesting movie out of it. Perhaps, the script by Berger is just a bit too timid, a bit too reluctant to dive head-first into the realm of slashing satire or hard-hitting black comedy to register much of an impact, settling for feel-good, pseudo-Robin Hood pablum instead. That's a shame, seeing as how most of the actors reveal at least some degree of talent that the material gives them little opportunity to show off for the audience.