Cashback, lame name and disappointing movie

Cashback (2006)
Jamal's Rating: 1 star
Netflix Average Rating: 3.4 stars

This one comes with outstanding honors from the Netflix community, who compare director/screenwriter Sean Ellis' work to that of Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). And while technically he does excellent work behind the camera, as evidenced by a series of cool time-freeze passages and a humorous scene in which a boy's gaze remains fixed on a lady's naked torso -- it is the worst kind of script. One in which the hero, a young college-age kid (Shaun Evans) who works at a gloomy grocery store and dreams of a career as an artist, does nothing with his superhuman time-freezing powers but undress girls. He then draws their curvy figures on a sketchpad, so we know he's being artistic rather than just horny, and he is seen as vastly superior to his thick-skinned, foul-mouthed coworkers who are essentially after the same thing. Besides that, the hero mopes around since being dumped by his girlfriend a little while back. A new romantic interest played by the lovely Emilia Fox is introduced, and their budding relationship encounters incredibly mild setbacks such as an awkward kiss and the dreaded Third Act Misunderstanding involving another woman, which is easily and predictably resolved moments later. The funniest and dare I say most interesting character in the movie, an unsociable Asian boy into martial arts, is relegated to a few small funny moments that break up this dreary British comedy.