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GUT (2011)
Directed by Elias
Written by Anna Ganster & Elias
Starring Jason Vail, Nicholas Wilder, Sarah Schoofs, & Angie Bullaro
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This subtle film will definitely creep up on you. GUT is about a pair of childhood friends and the strain that friendship must face upon growing up. Tom is kind of sleepwalking through life and is in need of a change. His equally adolescent adult friend Dan is concerned that the freewheeling friend he once new is becoming too much like an adult. Dan tries everything the get Tom to prolong his already-extended adolescence, but Tom’s wife and child force him to go in the other direction. Still, Tom is unhappy. When Dan shows Tom a digital film he received in the mail depicting what looks like a woman being killed by a man with a large knife, both Dan and Tom are fascinated by this film and both of their lives begin to unravel because of this unhealthy fixation.
On the one hand, GUT is a powerful and sublime film that relies on patience and slow builds to be effective. You’ll need a healthy dose of patience to get to the good stuff in this film–not a knock. This low budgeter is worth getting behind because of the deft use of silence and patience letting the character unfold without a lot of forced dialog. Most filmmakers lack this much restraint and you end up caring more about these characters because of it.
On the other hand, I found the resolution in this film to be misleading. I found myself wanting it to go into another, craftier direction than what actually transpires. I guess the way the two main characters fixate on the film somewhat unhealthily lead me to believe that more was going on under the surface and that possibly these two characters had more to do with the murder on tape than they were letting on. As is, GUT is a nice straight up thriller, but I couldn’t help but want a little more substance in the resolution.
MLMILLERWRITES / MLMillerFrights 