Dir. Michael Schroeder, US, 2007 109 mins
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Michael Angarano, M. Emmet Walsh
Review by
Carol Allen
Ten years ago Schroeder, who's directed some pretty low grade movies in his time, abandoned his career to work on writing and developing this very personal movie. It's a lovely story idea. Cameron (Angarano), who lives dysfunctionally with his kindly mum and domineering stepfather, dreams of winning a student film competition. Unlike the school bully Raven, whose wealthy dad works for a studio and is bankrolling his son's project, Cameron knows a lot about old movies, which he watches avidly in the local flea pit but, as Raven sneeringly points out, knows nothing about making them. Another regular at the flea pit, recalling his glory days as a gaffer, is Flash (Plummer) a grumpy alcoholic and the last surviving member of the crew, which worked on "Citizen Kane". Flash now lives in the Motion Picture Residence for the Elderly, a home for retired industry crew members. The two strike up a bumpy friendship, and eventually Flash agrees to help Cameron with his project. He introduces him to Mickey Hopkins (Walsh), a Hollywood screenwriter whose (fictional) credits, we're told, include "Roman Holiday" and "Gone with the Wind" and who hasn't had a screenplay made for some thirty five years. Mickey, who now lives in miserable poverty in a broken down apartment, agrees to write Cameron's script. Flash also recruits his fellow residents at the home to be Cameron's crew and swallows his pride to raise the $5,000 needed for the film from his arch enemy, wealthy producer Taylor Moss (an effective cameo from Robert Wagner), the man who years ago stole Flash's wife.
Despite it's ten year development, the story is not as well told as it could be. Schroeder has a penchant for using a jagged, strobe like film technique at times in an effort to reflect Flash's mind set but which just comes over as unnecessarily irritating. He also wastes too much time on irrelevant sub plots, trying to make an analogy between Flash's passion for the stray dogs imprisoned in the pound and the plight of elderly people like Mickey and it takes too long to get to the point. And when it does, it doesn't make enough of the possibilities of the actual making of the film with its elderly crew, which includes a near deaf sound engineer and a wardrobe mistress called Montana. What it does have though is three very good central performances. Angarano has something of the quality of the young Michael J. Fox and Walsh is touching as a man estranged from his family, who has lost all interest in life, until working on Cameron's project makes him realise that "We never lose our gifts, only the opportunity to use them". And Plummer as Flash is superb - self destructive, bitter and often foul mouthed and yet totally engaging as he teaches his young protégé that if you want to be the "Man in Chair", you're only as good as the crew, who make your movie happen. The film's also a bit of a cineaste's delight with a wealth of clips from old movies, which must have cost Schroeder a pretty penny in copyright costs and it makes some trenchant points about how American society dumps so many of its elderly citizens on the scrap heap, once they are no longer able to pursue the American dream.
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