Ah, local film. The hometown representation of the American Hollywood dream.
Film and theater students pour their hearts and souls into low-budget productions in an effort to garner experience and push toward the elusive fame that comes with distribution and attention given to their work.
For a locally made film, "Money, Guns and Coffee" isn't half bad. Although the low-budget camera work and minimal musical score hurts the film's general presentation, it offers a taste of talent that could be fully utilized with the addition of more funding and more professional acting.
It is the story of Pete and Evan (Ken D. Orlich and Justin Muschong), two roommates with completely different characteristics who live in harmony.
Evan is a college dropout pining and whining over former classmate Ashley (Nicole Mayes), who eggs him on with constant phone calls and party invites.
Ashley's hot-headed boyfriend Gavin (Dave Bisson) suspects romantic tension from Evan and, in turn, erupts in fits of anger and jealousy.
Ashley invites Evan to a dinner party with two rich-kid friends, who pressure him into making a pot run for them. Evan's older brother is a former druggie, you see, and Evan remembers where he used to get his hookups.
Meanwhile, completely moronic Pete runs up a $600 cable bill from a weekend of watching porn and goes out to make money collecting cans. While in a trash bin he overhears a job opportunity as a bag man for a local crime boss. He goes to the boss's office, claiming experience.
But he botches the simple exchange job, losing $50,000 of dirty money.
For some reason he gets the opportunity to redeem himself as a getaway driver for local strong-arm Kingston (Shane Hagedorn), a bad-ass enforcer with a bit of heart.
The biggest problem with "Money, Guns and Coffee" is its convoluted storyline.
Jumping between Evan and Pete's situation, the film can't decide whether it wants to be a dumb romantic comedy or an emotional crime saga.
It jumps from scenes involving Evan's attempt to steal Ashley from Gavin to grittier, more brooding scenes involving the criminal underworld.
Either situation would have made a decent movie unto itself, but the film uses its link between the roommates as an excuse to combine the two, making for a very muddy combination that doesn't exactly work.
The actors are as good as can be expected in a small-scale film, particularly Hagedorn as the multi-faceted muscle.
Bisson fares well as a chachi slimeball, the kind of guy who has a nice girlfriend despite his unsavory character.
The leads also show a bit of talent. When Pete is not being overly stupid, Orlich evokes a young Eugene Levy.
Although the crime scenes are filmed fairly well, particularly the way violence is depicted in the absence of a budget for blanks and squibs, some forced performances and sloppy writing are a detriment.
Particularly unbelievable is a scene where Ashley, Gavin and their snooty friends smoke some weed and are fall-down wasted, screaming and flailing as though it were laced with PCP. It's obnoxiously overdone and unbelievable.
Filmed in the Lansing area (You can spot a Quality Dairy and a CATA bus, and a robbery scene takes place at Country Markett) and featuring MSU and LCC students, "Money, Guns and Coffee" is a decent - though flawed - entry into local film.
"Money, Guns and Coffee" will be screened at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Saturday at the Otherwise Gallery, 1207 Turner St. in Lansing's Old Town. Admission is $5.
If you liked this, you may also like: "Bottle Rocket." Director Wes Anderson's brilliantly quirky first film about moronic wannabe criminals is a little-seen cult classic of indie cinema.
