Review of Mystery Team (2009) by Stephen P — 24 Jul 2009

A five star rating for a movie that I've been talking about for months? I'm biased you say? Well fuck you. No but seriously, this movie was REALLY strong.

Funny the whole way though, the character dynamics and arcs are hilariously juxtaposed and work strongly both in filmic terms, and comedic terms.

The writing was strong, each character was fully realized in every way imaginable, and the audience got to realize every character by the time the credits rolled. Seriously almost everyone paid off, no weak characters.

Donald, Dominic, and D.C. are obviously all VERY funny guys. Proof by going to youtube and viewing almost any Derrick Comedy sketch. However, their acting is surprisingly strong too. As improv actors, you can see that they are very focused on each other during any scene, but, this makes their caring albeit slightly naive characters play all the better.

Dan Eckman has achieved something VERY big here as a director. His scenes are well shot and he manages to carefully create dramatic tension in the camera WITHOUT shaking handheld camera. That technique is old, and I'm glad Mr. Eckman realizes this. This film is surprisingly cinematic for a first time director, as well as an independent film. I assume Eckman compromised very little in the making of this film and it payed off.

The only criticism I have is about the linearity of the film in the first act. I think it fails to add anything to the film and seems out of place in the context of the rest of the film.

I think this film is worth seeing not only for it's comedic merit, but for it's dramatic worth as well. Any up and coming filmmaker needs to see this and throughly analyze how the fuck they managed to do something so spectacular and do your damnedest to emulate that.

Stephen out.