Stegman Is Dead

This film is designed along the same vein as the much more intriguing 2008 release "Burn After Reading" that starred Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney, and John Malkovich just to name a few of the star power which made it more enjoyable to watch. But as low budget films go, so does lesser known talent that stars in this decent "stand on its own merit" film Stegman Is Dead.

Stegman is a porn producer who needed seed money for his next blockbuster porn production so he develops a few video tapes of criminals catching them in compromising positions that allows him to blackmail these criminals. What Stegman didn't count on though was that these blackmailed criminals will not sit idly by doling out their hard earned cash to a scumbag porno king extortionist like Stegman.

So one by one we are witnessing this string of gun wielding and sledge hammer carrying criminals pay a visit to Stedman's mansion to recover their personal incriminating video tapes only to find a guy in the bathroom shot twice in the head and rea' dead. Is this Stedman? Well even the criminals and hit men who break into Stedman's home aren't sure who is sitting in the bathroom floor with two bullets in him is Stedman or not. So each goes through the house opening safes and looking behind pictures to recover their criminal revealing video tapes but to no avail.

Trouble really starts brewing when the cops show up, ambulance attendants and when multiple hitmen and a hit woman are on site at the same time. The plot appears to be confusing but it is really quite simple. Find Stedman and you get your tapes back and stop the extortion.

The star of this film is a guy named Gus (Michael Eklund) who lives a miserable life being associated with a bunch of low life criminals, a nagging wife, and a cute pixy of a daughter who is learning the ropes from her daddy Gus. Into Gus's life walks a darn attractive, and darn serious hit woman named Evy (Bernice Liu) while he is searching through Stegman's home for the tapes used to extort him and his fellow band of criminals that include boss man Don (Michael Ironside) and his two useless sons.

As stated above, this film is not of the high(er) caliber of the 2008 Burn After Reading film but the acting is decent enough as well as the story line and is worth a watch. I give the film a decent 6 out of 10 rating.

Don (Michael Ironside) hires Gus (Michael Eklund) to get a videotape from Stegman's house. Only Stegman is already dead. He's been shot during his porn shoot and the tape is nowhere to be found. More and more assassins are looking for tapes, and the cops show up too.

Michael Ironside looks sharp. That's the most important thing in this movie. He's alive and kicking. I like the Stegman house and Evy and the parade of people. Gus takes forever to get there. I don't care about Gus' family. They are good for a few jokes and then they need to go. This is all about Gus, Don, and Evy. BTW, I like the title, Stegman Is Dead, more.

Imitation Tarantino, like so much by lesser filmmakers since the juggernaut that was "Pulp Fiction". The actors' do manage to wring some authenticity out of the lead's (Michael Eklund') nuclear family scenes with wife ( Andrea del Campo ) and daughter(Linnea Moffat) but the pistol packing patriarchs and matriarch's are such an "homage" to the Master as to be citeable for outright plagiarism. "Comic" criminals are forced, not funny. Ultimately collapses under it's own unoriginal weight as I became less and less interested, and ends with a whimper, with the expectation of a sequel I won't wait in expectation for.

For the best Neo-Tarantino see Guy Ritchie. At least he translates it into British.