‘Big Break’ Review: Comedy Quartet Meets Serial-Killer Peril in an Amusing, Tongue-in-Cheek Thriller
NYC-based sketch comedy quartet Simple Town, who have performed live and in online shorts over the last decade, make an amusing leap to the feature-film format in “Big Break.” Ostensibly playing themselves, the group here gathers at a country manse to celebrate one member’s breakaway mainstream success — and for the other three to beg/cajole him into sharing that good fortune. Unbeknownst to the visitors, there’s an unhappy fifth party already in the house… and more than one homicidal maniac even within that small populace.
As in their prior work, the troupe’s humor is less a matter of sight gags or punchlines than a well-oiled ensemble dynamic that sends up Gen Y self-absorption, social awkwardness and passive-aggressive competition. It’s not a formula that generates huge laughs, and the material here is seldom all that inspired even as it playfully exploits horror conventions. Yet the results are fun and reasonably funny throughout, with astutely self-deprecating cast turns lent a modest but polished, fast-paced showcase in director Ian Faria’s feature debut.
Reuniting with long-incommunicado former collaborator Sam (Sam Lanier) is a very big deal to Caro (Caroline Yost), Felipe (Felipe Di Poi) and Will (Will Niedemann), as their neurotically argumentative drive to see him underlines. They must pretend they’re simply glad to spend the weekend at their good buddy’s pad, a sizable estate two hours outside Manhattan, since he’s finally invited them over. But they’re each none-too-quietly seething with covetous anxiety and resentment, particularly since the thing that skyrocketed Sam to Hollywood wealth and fame — writing an animated film called “The Gummy Bear Movie” — happens to contain a lot of lines and ideas that were once group property, used without attribution. The three are desperate to arm-twist their way into a slice of that future-career pie, though they can’t agree on how to broach the subject. No one is pleased when Will, having drunk too much alcohol way too fast, is first to blurt out a request-slash-demand.
But then there’s another issue going on, which at first only the viewer is privy to: Success has gone to Sam’s head in more ways than one, unleashing an inner serial killer whose latest victim (Jefferson White from “Yellowstone”) gets introduced in a classic doomed-hiker-fleeing-through-the-woods sequence. Naturally, there’s a sort of torture dungeon on the premises, which for the time being his guests are mercifully unaware of. But they soon get wise, and in the meantime a captive gets loose. He has very good reason to desire bloody revenge, though some spotty eavesdropping gives him the false impression that everybody here is complicit in the host’s crimes. Soon, they’re all in an armed panic, likely to commit grievous bodily harm deliberately or otherwise.
While Lanier gets sole screenplay credit, one suspects much improvisational input at work here from the practiced way the leads play off each other. Their air of slightly absurd quasi-spontaneity is nicely amplified by the jittery yet unobtrusive rhythms of the direction and Yost’s editing. Amidst other solid contributions to a resourcefully produced whole, Alt-metal gods Helmet’s 1992 single “Get It” provides the perfect closing-credits sendoff.
As in their prior work, the troupe’s humor is less a matter of sight gags or punchlines than a well-oiled ensemble dynamic that sends up Gen Y self-absorption, social awkwardness and passive-aggressive competition. It’s not a formula that generates huge laughs, and the material here is seldom all that inspired even as it playfully exploits horror conventions. Yet the results are fun and reasonably funny throughout, with astutely self-deprecating cast turns lent a modest but polished, fast-paced showcase in director Ian Faria’s feature debut.
Reuniting with long-incommunicado former collaborator Sam (Sam Lanier) is a very big deal to Caro (Caroline Yost), Felipe (Felipe Di Poi) and Will (Will Niedemann), as their neurotically argumentative drive to see him underlines. They must pretend they’re simply glad to spend the weekend at their good buddy’s pad, a sizable estate two hours outside Manhattan, since he’s finally invited them over. But they’re each none-too-quietly seething with covetous anxiety and resentment, particularly since the thing that skyrocketed Sam to Hollywood wealth and fame — writing an animated film called “The Gummy Bear Movie” — happens to contain a lot of lines and ideas that were once group property, used without attribution. The three are desperate to arm-twist their way into a slice of that future-career pie, though they can’t agree on how to broach the subject. No one is pleased when Will, having drunk too much alcohol way too fast, is first to blurt out a request-slash-demand.
But then there’s another issue going on, which at first only the viewer is privy to: Success has gone to Sam’s head in more ways than one, unleashing an inner serial killer whose latest victim (Jefferson White from “Yellowstone”) gets introduced in a classic doomed-hiker-fleeing-through-the-woods sequence. Naturally, there’s a sort of torture dungeon on the premises, which for the time being his guests are mercifully unaware of. But they soon get wise, and in the meantime a captive gets loose. He has very good reason to desire bloody revenge, though some spotty eavesdropping gives him the false impression that everybody here is complicit in the host’s crimes. Soon, they’re all in an armed panic, likely to commit grievous bodily harm deliberately or otherwise.
While Lanier gets sole screenplay credit, one suspects much improvisational input at work here from the practiced way the leads play off each other. Their air of slightly absurd quasi-spontaneity is nicely amplified by the jittery yet unobtrusive rhythms of the direction and Yost’s editing. Amidst other solid contributions to a resourcefully produced whole, Alt-metal gods Helmet’s 1992 single “Get It” provides the perfect closing-credits sendoff.