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Bindlestiffs2012 | 80 min | R | 1.85:1
“Bindlestiffs” is a backyard production from young filmmaking novices that lucked into a distribution deal when Kevin Smith took a shine to the picture’s juvenile hostilities and no-budget aspirations. It’s a heartening story of Hollywood discovery that every indie production dreams of, yet the pixie dust seems wasted on “Bindlestiffs,” a motor-mouthed, overshot gross-out comedy that suggests a larger satire in play, but who could find such stimulation buried under layers of cheap jokes, amateurish performances, and camerawork that’s on par with the average YouTube cell phone video. A few punchy moments are detected through the creative smog, but laughs are a rare occurrence in this labored lark. 
John Woo (John Karna) is mindful of religion, raised in a strict Asian household. Luke Locktin (Luke Loftin) is looking for love, desperate to lose his virginity. And Andrew Edwards (Andrew Edison) is hungry for experience. As three kids stumbling through an oppressive high school year, the classroom ban and ensuing destruction of Salinger’s controversial book, “The Catcher in the Rye,” inspires a rebellion. Ditching school to arrange sexual adventures inside a seedy motel room, the boys inadvertently commence a wild week of misadventures, with Luke wooing a prostitute named Caramel (Adelaide Lummis), Andrew discovering the pleasures and humiliations of crack, and John hoping to seduce his drama teacher, only to end up in a violent love affair with a homeless woman. With sex, drugs, and abortions on their to-do list, the trio struggle to keep their sanity, while high school security officer Charlie (Will Fordyce) arms himself in anticipation of the gang’s return to class. “Bindlestiffs” is lowbrow entertainment, so there’s no real need to openly criticize the effort for its worthless vulgarity. Aching to startle, director/co-writer/star Edison accepts a pedestrian path of shock value to bring attention to his feature-length debut, filling the movie with all sorts of toxic behavior, verbal abuses, and dorm-room sexuality. It’s not a mean-spirited picture, but it’s seldom amusing, feeling more oppressive than jovial, hampered in great part by dollar-store production accomplishments and claustrophobic locations. The quaking HD look of “Bindlestiffs” doesn’t help either, watching Edison use a multitude of jittery angles to cover moments than merely require a single position of observance. Perhaps the helmer is anxious to obscure a lack of technique, or maybe this nervous energy is intentional, but it’s tiring to watch, especially when there’s little else to the viewing experience to savor. 
“Bindlestiffs” aims to provoke instead of tickle, an exhaustive creative direction engineered by Edison that’s reminiscent of last spring’s “Project X,” a similar effort that also begged audiences to endure idiotic antics from revolting characters. There’s no story to “Bindlestiffs,” just an episodic series of misadventures with a “Family Guy” sense of humor, revolving around the three boys as they quest to become men. Andrew takes his cues from “Catcher in the Rye,” trying to shape his rebellion in a recognizable fashion (wearing a red hunting hat to seize his Caulfield homage). Luke grows skittish when approaching the loss of his virginity, trying to romance Caramel before they engage in cold carnal delights. And there’s John, a naive Bible-reader falling hopelessly in love with a drunk vagrant, causing great alarm in the group when the boys fear she’s been impregnated a few hours after sexual relations. This string of pitiful teenage inexperience would be a riot with trained actors and a solid script. “Bindlestiffs” often looks made up on the spot, with Edison keeping the conversations in constant motion as a means to acquire laughs. It’s a chaotic dialogue assault missing wit and structure, leaving the little morsels of comedy that satisfy to visual gags, which show more life than the tedious verbal diarrhea that passes for banter. “Bindlestiffs” is a homegrown production lacking a confident vision, finding Edison simply slopping the screen with his ideas, praying a few might actually stick. 
It easy to see why Smith took a shine to “Bindlestiffs,” possibly sensing a connection to his debut movie, “Clerks,” with both pictures sharing a funky filmmaking dream attitude and an absence of budgetary might. Nevertheless, “Clerks” was cleanly made and prepared, finding life inside of its limitations. “Bindlestiffs” takes the scattergun approach to darkly comic adventures. It looks awful and sounds derivative, not necessarily announcing the debut of fresh talent on the cinema scene. It’s more of a warning. Starring: Andrew Edison, John Karna, Luke Loftin Director: Andrew Edison » See full cast & crew |
 
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