Heist to Meet You

Love and connection can make people do irrational things, whether it be to dress up in a silly crab costume on a third date, or take advantage of a hopeless romantic.

However what NRE (New Relationship Energy) can also provide is hope and the possibility for us to see the light of positive change, the kind where you will priortise love and laughter over your career, and it felt that legendary comp veterans Puppyguts were trying to explore some deeper themes along those lines.

I liked how the team turned the romcom genre on its head, creating a PANIC ROOM with pizza and board games, only with the slices of both comedy and margherita being dark and/or mouldy.

The script was reasonably strong especially in terms of the humour, and I really liked how the film was shot from a framing point of view. It was shot in a house/apartment, yes, but lighting was strong, and the safe room kept things engaging with the security screen in the background.

One of the nicest things about this team's understanding of genre in spite of subversion was knowing that for a succesful film in this genre you have to create building blocks and chemistry between characters, allowing the audience to feel a sense of hope even in dire circumstances. So well done there.

For mine, the performance of Reagan was probably the best part of the film. He played a believable reluctant hero who thought he was just really developing some lovely feelings for a woman, and portrayed this particularly well, ticking the required character trait with excellent craftsmanship.

My main issue with the film was something which for some viewers may have been a positive. When the panic room was secured, it kind of felt like any sense of dramatic urgency was lost. The film felt safe at that point, for lack of a better term. The reason I say some may view this as positive is that the absolutely preposterous situation was highly amusing and it kept the film tonally consistent with the charming date that kicked things off.

Also whilst really nicely shot, I wasn't 100% on board with some of the editing choices. For example the pizza to board game was kind of sudden, and whilst we had the chemistry established, I felt like some affirmation even slightly minor like a wink or a kiss would have made the bloody conclusion more satisfying. Still. love conquers all and I enjoyed the film.

Story: 3.5/5
Technical: 3.5/5
Elements: 4/5
Overall: 3.5/5