Chapter 7

A boy is expelled from school and his dad takes him into his place in Queens, where the boy basically spends his days lying around the basic apartment. His father has a lot of stress at work; it is not expressly said what this job is, but it is fairly clear that it is some sort of cash business and that it is illegal. While the boys days are free, the return home of his father sees that stress and frustration in need of an outlet.

This is a difficult film for me to state an opinion on because I will be honest I say I really think I totally missed something here. Now that may be the film's fault or it may be mine, but for sure there is a plot here that I'm just not getting. Too much seemed to be unknown and of little consequence that I find it hard to believe it was deliberate. I did still enjoy the film though, and did so across several viewings as I tried to understand what I was missing. The thing that made it so is that the father is an intense presence in each scene he is in. It helps that he is played by Steven Ogg, who will be very well known to gamers as Trevor Phillips from Grand Theft Auto V. Here he has that same intensity but without any humor, and it is chilling not just in its outward force, but for the feeling that his rage is doing way more damage to himself than it is as an outward presence. As the core of this short film, it is worth watching for.

However, to what consequence is his performance? I personally did not understand the message or meaning of the film (or the title for that matter), and as a result I wound up enjoying Ogg but not actually the film itself. Again, there is a high potential that I just didn't get it, and perhaps others will – but I suspect I will not be alone and, while Ogg is forceful and intense, there is not a film around him which is really worthy of what he does here.