Sunday, August 22, 2010

Love Conquers Paul, a lesson in what not to do in filmmaking

Love Conquers Paul (2009)
Jamal's Rating: 2 stars
Netflix Average Rating: 1.9 stars

Brendan Bradley as awkward geek Paul is a miscast actor if there ever was one. He has a chiseled jawbone, rippling muscles and perfect hair. In fact, he reminds me of a friend of mine, Tyler, also a handsome aspiring actor and bodybuilder, who once commissioned me to videotape him in various states of dweebery so he could tryout for a role on the reality series "Beauty and the Geek". It was a frustrating trial because, try as he might to ham it up for the camera, Tyler's inner confidence always shone through and ruined the take. Brendan Bradley here plays a lonely voyeur, but the scenes where he's looking through binoculars at bystanders appear so sanitary and staged, it's not convincing at all. There's no rush of excitement like in Hitchcock's "Rear Window"; Paul's voyeuristic exploits, like spying on a woman reading a book or receiving a nice gift from her mother, are genial and boring. Worse, at one point a girl who is the object of his attention is walking across the street, and in the next cut is seen getting out of a car. Very distracting. Incidentally, he meets the girl later on in a bar and their scene together actually has some pretty funny dialogue, but it's botched by the actors' flat delivery. Two stars, I could see enjoying this movie with a film buddy just to talk and laugh about all the mistakes.

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