I've recently sat through the film Cheap. An independent production written and directed by Brad Jones. That name might sound familiar depending on whether or not you watch his popular independent web series "The Cinema Snob", which revolves around him ripping apart subpar films from the past couple of decades. You might like it, I do, it puts a smile on my face, you might not, you might have forgotten how to smile, but that is another demon.
So let us talk cheap!
Where to begin? I guess you can claim that the film is aptly named.
It’s shot on a home video camera. It has a cast composed largely of friends and non-trained actors. I assume so alteast. Uses Minimal Lighting. Yes
However, if you rely solely on aesthetics to enjoy a film, then you are exercising poor judgment or you must be in high school and liked Law Abiding Citizen. Aesthetics are not what movies are about, it’s about telling a story. That’s what keeps you captivated; it’s that thing that happens that makes you pay attention to somebody when they are telling you a good ghost story. It has to have suction; you have to be sucked in.
I can happily say that the story driving Cheap sucks. It is so fucking fresh, I can only compare it to a profusely bleeding, infected gash in your abdomen that you can smell so vividly you'll remember till the day you die. And that my friends is a quality in films, rarely seen in modern movies drowning in a tidal wave of money, visual trickery, and blue tigers.
After a sadistic opening credit sequence, that I won’t dare to spoil for you here, perfectly sets the tone from the rest of the film we open up on one of the titular characters. The aptly named Max Force, the proprietor of a successful internet pornography production/distribution company fucking Natalie Nickels, a shell of a once top billed porn starlet turned drug addict looking to get her old job back. Max has no issues expressing his disgust towards Nickels, degrading her as he tells her she lacks the qualities to even be a star on a the sinking ship that is the pornography industry, before telling her to fuck off. It’s obvious, by the undercurrents of boredom reverberating in Max’s voice, his unsatisfied views towards his once beloved industry, his uncaring demeanor after a casual fucking and degrading, that Max has been saturating in filth and vices for so long that it’s practically embodied him. Fucking is as regular to him as eating breakfast is in the morning, he’s completely desensitized, So he looks for something new something so shocking, so next level that it breaks the monotony that is his life. Wouldn’t we all?
This segways into the next character, the dreamer Jack Stone, and an ex-porn director under Force’s stable, that shares Maxi boy’s sentiments with boredom over the lack luster offerings of the porn industry.
How often can you show people fucking and in how many different ways? And with what and in where.
It’s getting stale and it’s getting cliché and Mr. Jack Stone is certainly not either of those things, he is a visionary, a pioneer, who’s vision is going to elevate the industry to the next era.
Jack’s Vision: Snuff Film. The new era. The evolution towards violence seems to be the next logical step. In an age of Internet pornography being so easily accessible it’s dissolved all taboo’s surrounding it, it seems obvious to venture in the realms of violence and test those limits as well.
Jack subsequently recruits a film crew composed of two runaway girls and a pedophile to help him bring his cinematic dreams into fruition. After a successful shoot, Jack’s crew presents the movie to Max, who is fascinated by it, Max cuts a deal with Jack and contracts him to make more, while silently ordering hack director Derek Diamond to shoot rip-offs. Thus a beautiful relationship is born, that slowly descends into the hell mouth after Maxi Boy gets too involved with out of Jack’s crew that leads to climax that is so dark it has to been seen to be believed.
Among a cast of great staring and supporting characters, David Gobbles as Max Force and Writer Director Brad Jones as Jack Stone steal the show. Gobbles is a presence, sitting silently, gazing coldly, misleading with a calm demeanor that houses a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment. Jones’ does a sociopath, so insane, so innocent in his aspirations, so child like that it almost makes you sympathize with his homicidal rampage, this guy makes you realize why people could follow Charlie Mason. He can fuck you and kill you at the same time.
Kudos to Victor Roebuck, for his excellent throwback mo-town musical choices, that instill uneasiness and dread when juxtaposed with Miles Thorne’s bleak, washed out, low quality images (the end result is great). These kids have found the soul cinema (something those dogme 95 guys were trying to do back in the day), bludgeoned it to unconsciousness, and cut it's throat in front of a camera and distributed the footage over the Internet.
Watch the Footage Here
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