| RANDOM SHOOTING IN L.A. Rating:   Director: Jeffrey Delman Producer: Matt Keener Writers: Don Morgan, Jeffrey Delman, Cathryn de Prume, Jon Bastian, Sam Ingraffia, Matt Keener, Babs Lindsay Director of Photography: Stephen Timberlake Cast: Cathryn de Prume, David Hussey, Adam Gersh, Matt Hannigan Visit the IMDB page for full cast and crew |
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Review by: Warren
Curry
8/27/02
For starters, let me provide a quick back-story about my first encounter with Jeffrey Delman's absolutely amazing new film Random Shooting In L.A. It was about 11:45 P.M. on a Saturday night in July during the most recent Dances With Films Festival. I had just come out of a decent film and was kicking around the pros and cons of staying for the midnight screening of RSLA. My first instinct was to jump in my car and head home to bed to rest up for another day of festival-going. After weighing my options some more, I realized it was less than 5 minutes to showtime, so I shrugged off a bit of drowsiness and decided to at least give the film a chance, knowing that I could make a break for the exit if I didn't find myself quickly engaged. When the film's final credits rolled close to 2:00 A.M. on Sunday morning, I was wide awake and wanted nothing more than to spend two more hours with this stunning movie.
Told exclusively from the point of view of a home video camera, RSLA captures significant moments in the lives of a varied group of characters in Los Angeles, who exchange possession of the camera. There's the family of naive suburban tourists whose young son goes missing, the unsettling truths that arise in the aftermath of a married couple's failed experiment in home pornography, an obsessive young man whose infatuation with a woman makes him the victim of a violent assault and a manipulative man's game to fool a prostitute into developing romantic feelings for him. The characters from the different stories only interact briefly, as the film wisely chooses to proceed on a linear narrative path.
Although the film combines various stories, it's constructed in a traditional three-act fashion. The individual stories are powerful on their own, but exude a greater level of importance due to the bigger picture they help build. The movie stares unflinchingly into the ugly face of inhumanity, and then deftly contrasts it with the strength and beauty of humanism. The film never settles for shortcuts and, ultimately, embraces a raw honesty in its characters, which I found to communicate such warmth, even (perhaps especially) in the most trying of moments.
The third act of the film, comprised of the story of Silyotka (Cathryn de Prume), a Russian prostitute who spends an evening with what seems to be a Prince Charming named Steve (David Hussey) and his friend Gary (James Castle Stevens), is utterly captivating. Both de Prume and Hussey's performances are superlative and heartbreaking. De Prume also wrote this segment and there's not a false note to be found -- a perfect climax to the film. In an earlier story, Adam Gersh delivers a fantastic performance as Raymond, a man written off by his parents and hopelessly/dangerously attracted to a woman named Claire (Kara Zediker).
Visually, the film is quite successful, despite the obvious conundrum for director Delman. He faced the task of making his camera be expressive, but also keeping in mind that the videography had to possess an amateur/home video look. Somehow, he found a happy medium. The film's editing and pacing is most effective -- telling the opening stories in a succession of quick shots and gradually, almost imperceptibly, allowing the compositions to hold longer as the dramatic moments become more prevalent.
In summation, Random Shooting In L.A.
clearly stands out a wonderfully complex, yet refreshingly accessible
film. It's a powerful and richly rewarding work that will remain
in your mind long after you've viewed it.
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