Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Yay for free wi-fi. I'm in the Holiday Village theater, waiting for Justin Theroux's movie to start, so I'm going to post up Rav's review of Go-Getter and another pair of reviews from me.

But first, Rav. I had intended to see this movie, THE GO-GETTER, but due to shifting interviews and conflicting films I'm going to have to miss it at the fest. Luckily, Rav didn't have that problem. Hopefully I'll be able to catch this film sometime in the near future. SXSW maybe? Anyway, enjoy the review!

Heya Guys,

I’m back writing from the Super Happy Panda Buffet between movies. This time I’m here to write about Martin Hyne’s road movie “The Go-Getter,” starring Lou Taylor Pucci (Thumbsucker), Jena Malone, and Zooey Deschanel.

The Go-Getter – Written and Directed by Martin Hynes

This was one of the movies on my “do-not-miss” Sundance list, not because I’m a huge fan of indie road movies (which I’m not, and I’ll explain that later) or because I’m familiar with Martin Hynes earlier work (I only know him as George from George Lucas in Love). I was eagerly awaiting it because I’ve had a huge crush on Jena Malone for something like seven years now. I see everything with her in it, most of the time she has fairly good taste in material, but a couple of times it’s found me sitting through some horrible movies, most particularly the genetic killer-sheep drama called “Corn.” So it was this obsession that got me to gleefully hop out of bed and make my way to the holiday village theatre this morning.

The Go-Getter is about teenager named Mercer (Lou Taylor Pucci) who finds himself disillusioned after a major loss, to cope with it he steals a car to go on a road trip to find his Mexican half-brother that he hasn’t seen in many years. As he sets on the trip a cell phone rings in the car, he answers it, it’s Kate (Zooey Deschanel) the car’s owner. She know’s his name, which disturbs him, but she lets him keep the car for the trip as long as he tells her about it. He sets out to meet up with a girl (Jena Malone) that he knew in middle school that lives in Fuller, NV, near where his brother is supposed to be at.

I don’t usually like indie road movies because they tend to be boring, sure there are lots of good ones that come to mind, but for every good one I can think of another that is just an excuse to have many deep contemplative shots of a character walking around a highway while hearing hypnotic hippy music. The type of movie that is only entertaining with a healthy dose of peyote. The phrase “journey of self-discovery” in a festival description is usually just code for “bring a pillow, we only programmed it in order to get a famous person to show up.” Somehow the go-getter works, it’s quite entertaining and manages to actually be a journey of self-discovery where the main character actually does discover things.

Through the journey Mercer meets an odd cast of characters and finds himself in a couple of bizarre situations, my favorite one is when Mercer finds himself on a porn-set with a porn director named Sergio Leone, played by Julio Oscar Mechoso and an anal-seeking Ronald Reagan. Another good one involves Bill Duke playing a character named “Liquor Supply,” a hand gun, a very-touchy-feely-homosexual goon, and a very large hunting knife. The journey takes him all over the country through many beautiful landscapes along the way, and at one point it even heads over to Mexico.

One of my favorite elements is how Hyne’s handles Zooey Deschanel’s character, for most of the movie she’s only connected to Mercer through cell-phone conversations, but Hyne’s injects her into the story in very interesting ways. For example she’ll wind up popping up in the backseat of the car during a phone-call, but wearing a pulsating light on her head, while her audio is still the phone-call audio. (I know that sounds really bizarre, but it’s not, it’s actually very effective and cool).

Lou Pucci delivers a solid performance, I liked him in Thumbsucker, but he seems more real and natural here. Zooey Deschanel is quite wonderful and I don’t think Jena Malone has ever played a character like the one in this film, she plays this very free-spirited girl, ecstacy-loving, sexy, sexy girl. As usual she pulls it off marvelously. Theres also a great cast of supporting characters that mercer encounters on the road, we already mentioned Bill Duke, but there’s also Judy Greer and Maura Tierney at separate places.

Byron Shah, who also shot another Sundance film An American Crime, did a fantastic job with this film. It’s shot with this very high-contrast look that is very muted and creates this very odd-but-beautiful look. The choice to use M. Ward’s music throughout the film was a very good one, it complements the road movie feel and is always a great listen.

Overall it’s quite a wonderful film, always entertaining and at moments deeply moving, Martin Hynes should be very proud of the work that he’s created. I’m eagerly looking forward to Martin’s next film. I’m sure this’ll get picked up soon, I know picturehouse was at the screening I attended. It’s an odd work, but with the right treatment could be a sleeper hit at the box office.

Alright I’m off now for the moment, I’ll be back later tonight with a review from the very first screening of Chapter 27 and it is one of the most boring films at this years Sundance film festival.

Later on,

Rav
Ravkill@msn.com