Director:
Geoffrey Stephenson
Studio/Production Company:
Confuse A Cat Motion Pictures
Genre:
Crime
Length:
Feature
Website:
http://happychi.net/confuseacat
Score:
1.5/5
In order to be considered a feature, a film has to be at least 70 minutes long. Boise, Idaho writer-director-producer-star Geoffrey Kirk Stephenson's debut feature “A Good Alibi” runs 97 minutes long and is, at least, 30 minutes too long. Seriously, from a film-making point of view, there is so much in this film that goes nowhere, does not advance the plot and is not, by almost any stretch of the imagination, entertaining and, to that end, some serious editing, streamlining, maybe bringing it closer to that 70 minute mark, would have gone a long way towards making the film more watchable.
Things get off to a good, even oddly compelling start and I even began to feel like I had happily entered Coen Brothers territory when Jerry (Stephenson) drives hundreds of miles to avenge the death of his wife by killing the drunk driver responsible for it. He shows up at the grungy home of the low-life, calmly, coldly dispatches him like he was swatting a fly and heads back home.
It is not long before he becomes a person of interest in the case and gets a visit from two slick detectives, Perez (Sandra Inezz) and Bingham (Lord B. Wag), who he invites into his home as if they are old friends. The degree of Jerry's unflappable manner, his seemingly airtight alibi and professed innocence only wind up making the detectives more suspicious of him. But, in the seven years between his wife's death and the murder of her killer, he seems to have had ample time to conceive of and execute the perfect crime and, try as they might, the detective case quickly cools off.
It is at this point that “A Good Alibi” should kick into high gear. There is no mystery, we know who the killer is, we know that the police suspect him and we now expect to get wrapped up in a cunning game of cat-and-mouse, watching Jerry continue to use his wiles to outwit Perez and Bingham, watching Perez and Bingham ready to pounce on any slip up that Jerry makes... and it doesn't happen that way, like the case itself, the movie goes cold, no cat, no mouse, no dramatic tension.
Jerry is so cool that he allows the police to look around his home even when he has to leave and run an errand. While gone, the detectives discover his cache of anti-depressants and log onto his computer to explore his on-line activities. After a scene in which the budding psychologist Perez (terribly acted by Inezz) goes on a seemingly endless and cinematically stale discourse about the pitfalls and negative effects of anti-depressants (SSRI's) and how they might be playing a role in the case, she and Bingham (an equally terrible performance by Samuel L. Jackson doppleganger Wag) they essentially disappear from the film, about half an hour in.
The film then seems to shift gears and go in a totally different direction, with the free as a bird Jerry trying find a nice girl in a Mormon chat room in an excruciatingly long scene ---- there are few things more boring visually than someone sitting at a computer and typing, something every filmmaker needs to know.
He succeeds, meets pretty, smart and cool Megan (Lubi Boutdy) and they hit it off. After an unfortunately home movie quality sequence at some sort of carnival , Jerry invites Megan back to his place where they get to know each other more and eventually engage in one of his real passions: getting high.
Things seem to be progressing well with Megan and Jerry seems to have scored big, avenging his wife's death, getting away with murder, outwitting the police and scoring a hot girl but Megan has a sudden change of heart and disappears from Jerry's life almost as quickly as she entered it.
And thus begins what feels like the bulk of the film, Jerry's endless “lost weekend” in which he eats, watches TV and gets high – a lot! The problem here is that there is no real problem to solve, no real goal for the character to strive for and, in other words, no plot, no drama and nothing to keep the audience interested. "How clean can Jerry get his bowl?" seems to be the point of another long sequence in which he obsessively dismantles, cleans and reassembles his pot pipe.
The film does have a conclusion, though it is pretty hard to call it a climax because it feels rather random and is not especially engrossing. Eventually, time passes, seasons change, things catch up to Jerry and he makes a desperate move, presumably to reconcile a degree of inner conflict that, to this point, 95% of the way into the film, has not really been explored.
Ultimately, “A Good Alibi” seems to be about two things, two things that are apparently close to director Stephenson's heart --- the misguided over-prescription of dangerous SSRI's and the hypocrisy of the Mormon church --- both of which are ranted upon over the course of the film.
Stephenson deserves credit for producing a feature film for $1000.00 that, except for the carnival/fireworks sequences and the terrible performances by the actors playing the detectives, does not feel like a really low-budget film. Stephenson himself and actress Boutdy are pretty good, the real culprit here is the screenplay and, perhaps the editing. If Stephenson could not have written a better screenplay, he should have had the insight or restraint to reign himself in and cut the indulgent, superfluous material that bogs the film down and ultimately sinks it. Not changing a thing about the story but cutting it down to the bare minimum 70 minute running time would have been a good strategy for “A Good Alibi.”
Geoffrey Stephenson
Studio/Production Company:
Confuse A Cat Motion Pictures
Genre:
Crime
Length:
Feature
Website:
http://happychi.net/confuseacat
Score:
1.5/5
In order to be considered a feature, a film has to be at least 70 minutes long. Boise, Idaho writer-director-producer-star Geoffrey Kirk Stephenson's debut feature “A Good Alibi” runs 97 minutes long and is, at least, 30 minutes too long. Seriously, from a film-making point of view, there is so much in this film that goes nowhere, does not advance the plot and is not, by almost any stretch of the imagination, entertaining and, to that end, some serious editing, streamlining, maybe bringing it closer to that 70 minute mark, would have gone a long way towards making the film more watchable.
Things get off to a good, even oddly compelling start and I even began to feel like I had happily entered Coen Brothers territory when Jerry (Stephenson) drives hundreds of miles to avenge the death of his wife by killing the drunk driver responsible for it. He shows up at the grungy home of the low-life, calmly, coldly dispatches him like he was swatting a fly and heads back home.
It is not long before he becomes a person of interest in the case and gets a visit from two slick detectives, Perez (Sandra Inezz) and Bingham (Lord B. Wag), who he invites into his home as if they are old friends. The degree of Jerry's unflappable manner, his seemingly airtight alibi and professed innocence only wind up making the detectives more suspicious of him. But, in the seven years between his wife's death and the murder of her killer, he seems to have had ample time to conceive of and execute the perfect crime and, try as they might, the detective case quickly cools off.
It is at this point that “A Good Alibi” should kick into high gear. There is no mystery, we know who the killer is, we know that the police suspect him and we now expect to get wrapped up in a cunning game of cat-and-mouse, watching Jerry continue to use his wiles to outwit Perez and Bingham, watching Perez and Bingham ready to pounce on any slip up that Jerry makes... and it doesn't happen that way, like the case itself, the movie goes cold, no cat, no mouse, no dramatic tension.
Jerry is so cool that he allows the police to look around his home even when he has to leave and run an errand. While gone, the detectives discover his cache of anti-depressants and log onto his computer to explore his on-line activities. After a scene in which the budding psychologist Perez (terribly acted by Inezz) goes on a seemingly endless and cinematically stale discourse about the pitfalls and negative effects of anti-depressants (SSRI's) and how they might be playing a role in the case, she and Bingham (an equally terrible performance by Samuel L. Jackson doppleganger Wag) they essentially disappear from the film, about half an hour in.
The film then seems to shift gears and go in a totally different direction, with the free as a bird Jerry trying find a nice girl in a Mormon chat room in an excruciatingly long scene ---- there are few things more boring visually than someone sitting at a computer and typing, something every filmmaker needs to know.
He succeeds, meets pretty, smart and cool Megan (Lubi Boutdy) and they hit it off. After an unfortunately home movie quality sequence at some sort of carnival , Jerry invites Megan back to his place where they get to know each other more and eventually engage in one of his real passions: getting high.
Things seem to be progressing well with Megan and Jerry seems to have scored big, avenging his wife's death, getting away with murder, outwitting the police and scoring a hot girl but Megan has a sudden change of heart and disappears from Jerry's life almost as quickly as she entered it.
And thus begins what feels like the bulk of the film, Jerry's endless “lost weekend” in which he eats, watches TV and gets high – a lot! The problem here is that there is no real problem to solve, no real goal for the character to strive for and, in other words, no plot, no drama and nothing to keep the audience interested. "How clean can Jerry get his bowl?" seems to be the point of another long sequence in which he obsessively dismantles, cleans and reassembles his pot pipe.
The film does have a conclusion, though it is pretty hard to call it a climax because it feels rather random and is not especially engrossing. Eventually, time passes, seasons change, things catch up to Jerry and he makes a desperate move, presumably to reconcile a degree of inner conflict that, to this point, 95% of the way into the film, has not really been explored.
Ultimately, “A Good Alibi” seems to be about two things, two things that are apparently close to director Stephenson's heart --- the misguided over-prescription of dangerous SSRI's and the hypocrisy of the Mormon church --- both of which are ranted upon over the course of the film.
Stephenson deserves credit for producing a feature film for $1000.00 that, except for the carnival/fireworks sequences and the terrible performances by the actors playing the detectives, does not feel like a really low-budget film. Stephenson himself and actress Boutdy are pretty good, the real culprit here is the screenplay and, perhaps the editing. If Stephenson could not have written a better screenplay, he should have had the insight or restraint to reign himself in and cut the indulgent, superfluous material that bogs the film down and ultimately sinks it. Not changing a thing about the story but cutting it down to the bare minimum 70 minute running time would have been a good strategy for “A Good Alibi.”