10 Items or Less (2006)
Released: December 1, 2006
Director: Brad Silberling
*****
The first film in history to be released via internet download while playing in theaters, 10 Items or Less strives for an indie-quirk attitude, yet loses it within the first twenty minutes of the production. For the next hour, it is a rumination on the differences between the working and upper classes. It's too bad the interplay Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega display in the grocery store early on is moved outside that establishment later in the film; the down and out market is a wondrous place filled with rich possibilities for dark humor.
And there's the problem: this movie is billed as a comedy when it really isn't. Sure, watching Freeman as an out of work actor watch Vega's Scarlet go about her rudimentary cashier job doesn't sound funny, though it is his wide eyed disbelief over her menial tasks which makes the sequence a pleasure to watch. (Not to mention director Silberling allows the actors to act in unbroken takes throughout the film.) An entire film could have been made inside the market, centering on the people there and Freeman's reactions to each of them. Truthfully, that's where the movie should have been set, not in car washes and interviews, trailer parks or car hoods.
However, the finished product is what we're given. 10 Items or Less turns into each of them teaching the other something important about life. Scarlet, stuck in a dead in job with a dead end husband, brings Freeman back to earth, walking him through a world he has never known. For his part, Freeman is happy go lucky, without a seeming care in the world...a lesson he imparts on Scarlet. She is perpetually negative, finding reasons not to do the things she should be doing. Take a job interview. The pair go into Target-a wonder for Freeman-where he "puts her together," casting her in the role of an office manager. He's soft and delicate with his young ward, pushing her to think of herself in a positive light. But it's dreadfully boring.
Freeman and Vega develop an easy rapport in 82 minutes, inhabiting both their characters fully. Considering they are are the leads and only actors with any appreciable screen time, the relative success of the production rests squarely on them. Silberling's direction is functional, considering the film was shot in 15 days on a "nothing" budget. His greatest achievement is knowing when to allow the scene to continue uninterrupted, making this truly an actors film. Despite the acting and directing, it's the script which lets us down in the end. Too indie, too high minded, too art house.
Director: Brad Silberling
*****
The first film in history to be released via internet download while playing in theaters, 10 Items or Less strives for an indie-quirk attitude, yet loses it within the first twenty minutes of the production. For the next hour, it is a rumination on the differences between the working and upper classes. It's too bad the interplay Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega display in the grocery store early on is moved outside that establishment later in the film; the down and out market is a wondrous place filled with rich possibilities for dark humor.
And there's the problem: this movie is billed as a comedy when it really isn't. Sure, watching Freeman as an out of work actor watch Vega's Scarlet go about her rudimentary cashier job doesn't sound funny, though it is his wide eyed disbelief over her menial tasks which makes the sequence a pleasure to watch. (Not to mention director Silberling allows the actors to act in unbroken takes throughout the film.) An entire film could have been made inside the market, centering on the people there and Freeman's reactions to each of them. Truthfully, that's where the movie should have been set, not in car washes and interviews, trailer parks or car hoods.
However, the finished product is what we're given. 10 Items or Less turns into each of them teaching the other something important about life. Scarlet, stuck in a dead in job with a dead end husband, brings Freeman back to earth, walking him through a world he has never known. For his part, Freeman is happy go lucky, without a seeming care in the world...a lesson he imparts on Scarlet. She is perpetually negative, finding reasons not to do the things she should be doing. Take a job interview. The pair go into Target-a wonder for Freeman-where he "puts her together," casting her in the role of an office manager. He's soft and delicate with his young ward, pushing her to think of herself in a positive light. But it's dreadfully boring.
Freeman and Vega develop an easy rapport in 82 minutes, inhabiting both their characters fully. Considering they are are the leads and only actors with any appreciable screen time, the relative success of the production rests squarely on them. Silberling's direction is functional, considering the film was shot in 15 days on a "nothing" budget. His greatest achievement is knowing when to allow the scene to continue uninterrupted, making this truly an actors film. Despite the acting and directing, it's the script which lets us down in the end. Too indie, too high minded, too art house.
