Bass Ackwards, maybe the title refers to the VW bus in the movie...

Bass Ackwards (2010)
Jamal's Rating: 2 stars
Netflix Average Rating: 2.4 stars

It's a tip to beginning filmmakers to make the cars your heroes drive in movies special, to make them stand out.  Toyota Camry: bad.  Burgundy Volvo 164: perfect.  Such is to the credit of Bass Ackwards, a film in which the vehicle, an old worn VW bus, is as much a character as anyone else -- sputtering up hills, scraping the front bumper over sidewalks, and guzzling fuel like a steam engine.  It has a certain charm to it.  As does the movie, one in which the hero takes across the country bound for New York to stay with his dad while he gets back on his feet.  But while we already feel badly for the protagonist, who is the heartsick victim of a romance that never was, the movie never seems to get enough of punishing him in small ways, like making him sick after a meal, having him collect manure as a temporary job, or having him threatened by a guy who suspects he was hitting on his girlfriend.  He's always in the wrong place at the right time.  I wanted so badly to like this indie flick more than I did.  The performances are superb.  The director/writer/star Linas Phillips is such a sincere and sweet-hearted guy, but the movie, for all its hundreds of miles of track across mid-America, doesn't cover much real ground.  He meets all sorts of friendly people along the way, which leads to a lot of mushy sentimentality, but where is the adventure we were hoping for?