Live Free or Die

Small town quirky characters and absurd situations. Aaron Stanford's performance, "Rugged", reminds me somewhat of Steve Buscemi, sort of nervous, hot-tempered, puny, and swaggering.

I agree with a previous comment that Paul Schneider's character does remind me of Will Ferrell.

Not a lot happens in parts of this little movie, but that seems to reflect several independent films.

I loved seeing the setting of New Hampshire, since I lived there for a year. The only thing that was missing was the authentic New Hampshire accents.

Last night I decided to go to a movie at the Woods Hole Film Festival. Live Free or Die grabbed my attention, so I blindly went in, hoping for a mediocre movie. The Film Festival is good, but my expectations are never that high. Boy how I was wrong. Written and directed by two former writers from Seinfeld, this movie was wonderfully funny and of a professional quality. It was impossible to believe that they only had one camera and less than $2 million! It was like watching a big name Hollywood picture, except without all the crap product placements. If you have a chance to see this movie, do it. They hope to at least do a New England or a college release, but I sincerely hope that it gets a wider distribution.

Another waste of time and money.

The disaffected, and smug characters were not interesting or sympathetic in a way that held my interest.

Save your time and money.

Do the right thing. Give it a pass.

I wished I had.

I am typing this part to reach the line minimum because I have no interested in blathering on about this turd of a flick.

I wish the talent well-chalk it up to experience, and move on.

It has Alan Smithee written all over it. There. I think I have reached the minimum amount of lines.

This movie has two great characters and a cool little story. However- those two characters and their story is enough to take up 20 minutes of film- after we breeze through that we still have an 1:40+ that is unaccounted for in the planning of this movie...

I like these characters A lot but what the hell was this idiot thinking stretching their material so thin?? They are only two guys- and not THAT interesting- they would make very cool supporting characters in a REAL movie, but this is more like a pilot for these characters than anything else- the actual movie totally, and utterly sucks from start to finish.

This is one of those, I'll keep watching this because it has to get better and it never does kind of movies... It never ever gets better- it's stuck in a rut of idiocy.

There are some good scenes so if you don't mind wasting your life and pissing yourself off- watch this, it's almost worth it to watch the 17 and a half minutes of good footage.

PLOT: a lowlife criminal in a small town is looking for street cred, he concocts a plan to impress a friend that owns a storage facility in the hopes of landing a security job with them, -that he is one bad mo fo that doesn't take any crap from anyone- but the plan kind of goes everywhere but where it's supposed to...

Scenic New Hampshire serves as the novel setting for "Live Free or Die" (not to be confused with the later Bruce Willis film, "Live Free or Die HARD"), an entertaining indie comedy that takes its title from the state's time-honored motto of in-your-face defiance.

John Rudgate - who goes by the nickname "Rugged" - is an inept wannabe tough guy who fancies himself a notorious outlaw. He spends most of his days riding around in a dilapidated van trying to convince others - as well as himself - that he is, indeed, the most feared lawbreaker in the county. In reality, the "stolen" merchandise he is moving is actually his own stuff, and the gun he keeps in a drawer in the kitchen is nothing more than a water pistol. The folks in town shrug him off as little more than an irritating pest with delusions of criminal grandeur. Like any villain worth his salt, Rudgate needs to find himself a sycophantic henchman who will do a substantial amount of his dirty work for him. He alights on Lagrand, a simpleminded, but sweet-natured acquaintance who co-owns a storage facility with his sister, a clear-eyed pragmatist who, unlike her brother, knows a BS-ing con artist when she sees one.

Although the movie can't entirely shake free of the "oddball quirkiness" factor that seems to afflict so much of regional film-making these days, movie makers Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin evince a genuine affection for their characters and a sly way with storytelling that go a long way towards mitigating that weakness. They are aided immeasurably by wonderfully self-effacing performances by Paul Schneider, Michael Rapaport, Zooey Deschanel, and, above all, Aaron Stanford, who, as Rudgate, turns a potentially one-note caricature into an endearingly original and surprisingly memorable comic figure. And, besides, the colorful New England setting is alone worth the price of a rental.