Everyday Joe

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Everyday Joe

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Written by Alien Redrum

Friday, 23 October 2009 14:45

Everyday Joe Movie Review

Written by Steve "Alien Redrum" Pattee

Official Site

Who am I? Why am I even here? – Joe

Directed by Shane Cole
Written by Shane Cole, Gavin Hignight, Nick Rose and Zack Ward
2007, 25 minutes, Not rated

Starring:
Jason Miller as Joe
Persia White as Gina
Zachary Throne as Simon

Review:

Contrary to the movie title Everyday Joe, the character Joe (Jason Miller) is far from an everyday one. He has numerous issues, most centering around dealing with people — something he just can’t do very well. To make matters worse, lately he’s been waking up in strange places with, more importantly, dead bodies close by.

This new disorder is really stressing him out, and it’s affecting his ability to put the moves on Gina (a smoking hot Persia White). When attempting to stay awake fails him, he sets up a video camera in attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery, no matter where it leads.

Every time I review a short film, I mention how much I like watching them, be it in an anthology format or just a regular old short. I don’t enjoy them all, but I have a lot of respect for an artist who can make you care about their characters in a shorter time period than is usual. Shorts are tough because it seems they fail (or are forgettable) more often than not, but sometimes some rise above the others, be it in story, acting or direction. In the case of Everyday Joe, it’s all three.

The acting is superb in Joe, particularly Jason Miller’s Joe. The character is incredibly likeable, even with his issues and awful hairpiece. This is partially due to strong writing, sure, but Miller’s portrayal of the troubled Joe makes you really root for him. You want him to solve this crisis and get the girl because you can tell this guy has led a pretty lonely life, though not intentionally.

Persia White plays well off Miller as Joe’s hopeful love interest, Gina. While White is way too attractive to be the unicorn-loving neurotic woman she is portraying, she does a solid job capturing that uncomfortable flirtation of a new relationship. What’s most impressive with White’s performance is the way she nails Gina’s desperate-while-trying-not-to-sound-desperate tone when asking out Joe for the first time. Like Joe, you root for Gina too, as her crushing shyness – coupled with a bit of dork – makes you want to put an arm around her and take care of her.

Both Miller and White did great with a script that was solid to begin with. I give the quartet of writers kudos for not going the obvious route with the ending (and even taking it another notch up, going someplace I didn’t expect), but this is one of those instances where a short suffers because it’s a short. While it succeeds in one of the most key parts of a script – getting the audience to care about the characters – because of its length, you feel a little cheated on the reveal. It’s certainly believable, but there was not enough time dedicated to the setup of the ending, and even though the finale is satisfactory, it needs more fleshing out to be truly appreciated.

Everyday Joe is more of a black comedy than a horror movie, but it’s well written, directed and acted and it’s a solid piece on director Shane Cole’s resume. I suspect as he does more movies, you’ll eventually see this as a bonus feature on a DVD, and it would be a pretty good bonus at that. If you get a chance to see this at a festival, by all means check it out, as it’s a damn enjoyable 25 minutes.

Video and Audio:

Not rated as this is a screener.

Special Features:

Not rated as this is a screener.

Grades:
Movie:
Video:	n/a
Audio:	n/a
Features:	n/a
Overall:

(Equipment includes a Mitsubishi WS-48613 48” HDTV, OPPO DV-970HD DVD player and Onkyo HTS-770 Home Theater System and, in some cases, a Sony 27” WEGA TV and a Sony DVP-NS50P DVD player.)

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