Renegade

I watched a few shorts this weekend, and one of them was silly nonsense that offered nothing smart but seemed excessive and silly for the sake of it. This film was not Renegade, but the reason I mention it was because Renegade is the right pitch of silliness. In a plot that rips through at the speed of gruff narration, our hero arises, saves the girl, loses the girl, loses it all, comes back, and becomes the hero; all while wearing his own branded underwear. It is hard to describe but it is delivered in the style of a cheesiest 80's action b-movie – with comicbook villain, stunning woman in need of rescue, slow henchmen, limited budget, and lean but rugged hero in the Chuck Norris vein.

The tone is corny and silly but everything is targeted to making that work; the performances are well pitched to be wooden but yet still be obviously done so; the equipment and costumes do feel like a low budget; the characters are wonderfully broad, and all of it is played straight while being anything but. This type of thing is very hard to get right, because "funny silly" can easily become "dumb silly", but the balance here is very good. Ultimately of course it is silly, so don't come to this expecting high art, but it is really well edited together, and everything about it screams "corny" in a way that works very well and makes for a fun few minutes.