Review of Cashback (2007) by Michel R. S — 10 May 2010

In which an art student with insomnia gets a night job working in a Sainsburys supermarket, and to pass the time during his dull shifts starts to fantasise that he is able to freeze time and, whilst all the customers around him are still as statues, take the clothes off of attractive women so he can look at their lady bits. There's nothing more to Cashback than this, and indeed the film began as an 18 minute short feature by first time director Sean Ellis.

Sure, there's an attached plot that is there to give some kind of excuse for all this rampant voyeurism; but basically it boils down to a story about a lonely obsessive and his rather tiresome existence. Some good cinematography though, and I suppose it's fairly artfully done. If you like seeing ladies breasts and front bottoms then you'll like the first 30 minutes or so. It gets increasingly more self-indulgent and tiresome after this though. One bizarre thing: the main character is meant to be a student who's about twenty years old, and this film is set in 2006, yet he gets flashbacks to a childhood in the 1970s, which is a rather odd little anachronism.

Not really as clever or interesting as I think the director may have believed; you might wish for your cash back after seeing this...

...sorry about that. I couldn't help it.