Brewster McGee

Brewster McGee is a laboured made-in-Vancouver comedy with very little going for it. It was obviously a student film and features broad actors each doing a different accent. The character of Brewster is an arrogant, foul mouthed, redneck, who lives out of his car, and parks in a fast food parking lot every day, spouting his philosophies to his best friend, a hippie. They befriend an emotional fast food employee, hang out and ... the end.

The film is extremely short, and perhaps for the best. If it has anything going for it, it's the stylish black and white cinematography. The end credits border on Ed Woodian territory as they go on for a full twelve minutes, listing the crew while simultaneously giving us a tracking shot of Vancouver's notorious East Hastings Street.

It's a poorly shot... no really poorly shot student film. It's not funny. More stupid or ridiculous or moronic at best. The story line/plot is one dimensional and bland. The subject matter is more insulting and funny. My friends and I have to ask, "Who is the audience?" and "Who in their right mind would think this is funny?"

I suppose the one thing going for this "film" is that they make excellent use of foul language. One of my friends watching the film with me made what I consider to be a valuable comment. She said that dialogue that uses profanity every second work is very poorly written. She went on to say that if a film maker can not develop dialogue with out all of the swearing to get the meaning across, they are not a writer and should consider making "other" types of videos that welcome this sort of crude language.

Brewster McGee is a hilarious black comedy, written and directed by Ross Munro who does a great job capturing the eccentric low rent mood of the film. With a simple story about Brewster McGee (Brent Neale) a profane loser who sits outside in a Chicken Hut parking lot with his gentle hippie accomplice Malcolm (Reid Edwards) trying to turn his big plans into reality. Brent Neale who plays Brewster McGee does a good job in letting the audience feel a twisted compassion for his unlikeable character as he takes advantage of pathetic, heartbroken Oliver and thinks up impracticable get rich quick schemes. The film which was shot in 16mm black and white and with such a low budget (50,000 dollars Canadian) this small independent film did what it could with money restraints and yet still has more heart and soul than most blockbuster movies. Though it's not perfect, I assure you its worth while to see and entertains the open eye with its intense dialogue and creative plot.