The Corndog Man

The first several minutes of this film we do not see anyone's face. It seems that we are not supposed to feel connected with the characters just yet. And we never see the antagonist's face, save for a few sunglasses close-ups. And that works for the film. Ace, the man being harassed, is a sad sack with no friends or family and it's quite depressing. The whole phone-call thing is interesting at first, but the film could have been about 20 minutes shorter. It gets old. Ace seems to be a bigot mostly due to the atmosphere he was brought up in, and peer pressure. Why he is seen as an all-out bigot in 1997 is a mystery to me, and I still don't get the whole black drag-queen thing. The film is worth a look, if you enjoy human storytelling and smalltown locales, which I do. It was well-directed with a lot of nifty camera shots. I will be interested in seeing Andrew Shea's other dir

In modern movie making, an unfortunate trend has surfaced. In order to keep people interested in a film, too much of the story is given away right away, due to lack of ability to properly develop characters in a subtle fashion. And this may be why Corndog Man receives rather mixed reviews. In reality, Corndog Man is a skillful work which purposely doesn't portray Ace Barker, our main character, as an evil man or a vicious one for a purpose. This is a work not only about the torture of an evil man, but about the difficulty to pin evil on him. Wonderful acting and plot development make you somewhat sympathetic for Ace, as his life is shredded, because you don't know why it's happening until the end. It's a quick reversal when your emotions see the truth, an all too common feeling in real life when things and people aren't as they originally seem. Not too often does a movie properly invoke real reactions. Yes, the sound of a phone ringing does tempt one to pull out some hair, but all in all it's worth it. My highest recommendations for Corndog Man.

I read through most of the reviews here, and unless I missed it, did anyone get that triple K is KKK, for Ku Klux Klan? Maybe it was so obvious that no one bothered mentioning it.. Maybe not. Well, my brother forced this video on me a while back, and I must admit I enjoyed it, mainly for its originality and mean spirited sense of humor. Like someone else mentioned, its a breath of fresh air from all of the huge budgeted, over-produced CGI-fests that Hollywood keeps pooping out! For those of you who didn't like it, don't worry. I'm sure there's a new Ben Stiller "comedy" coming out soon. The only reason I didn't give it a ten is that it does strain your patience a bit.

This film was thrust upon me by one of my more assertive friends, Pat. Pat's tastes and mine rarely mesh when it comes to movies, and when he put it in the vcr and insisted I see it, I wasn't too thrilled. But I must admit, I found it interesting. I knew nothing about it, so when I see this boat salesman resembling Boss Hogg answering the phone and hearing a goofily - voiced prank caller, I assumed it would be just one of several things that would be annoying and pointless. And at first, that is what I got. With every phone ring, and every chant of the man answering "Triple K Marine!" I was annoyed and confused. Is this the whole movie?

Well, as it turns out, yes. But then a cool thing happened. The phone calls, while at first irritating, start to get less so when you do realize that they're the cornerstone of the entire film. Why does this prankster keep calling the boat salesman, and how much is the poor sap willing to take? Thus the movie became slowly more engrossing, and little by very little, more important information is revealed. It turns out there is more to this telephone terrorist than we at first think, and every new bit of information is awkwardly digested by the poor old boat salesman as we watch and wait to see what happens and what choices must be made.

The ending is open to debate as to whether it made the whole slow buildup worth it, but I myself think it was. It's a good movie with a good (albeit maybe sad) ultimate message, even if it does take a long time to slowly unroll. But I must give credit to the script and the actors who perform it, because what could be a relentlessly maddening hour and a half of uninteresting phone conversations, is skillfully turned into an interesting and funny (and finally dramatic) story of two lives intersecting for a very legitamite reason. It's worth watching, if not just to hear the goofy phone calls (one of which features my favorite line, quoted at the top) and the even goofier reactions of the beleagered boat guy. Unique fun and drama, and an interesting surprise.

At a loss for anything decent at the video store I took a chance on Corndog Man. I'm really glad I did. This is an intriguing film that has you wondering who the antagonist is and what his motivation is throughout the film. There are moments of very good comedy and moments of very good yet tasteful social commentary about racism and how it heats up when biased people regress to their simpler emotions under stress. Mostly though, I found it an enjoyable mystery and character study that is well paced and well-developed. Definitely worth a look.