Buzzard
Grade: B
Director: Joel Potrykus (Ape)
Screenplay: Potrykus
Cast: Joshua Burge (Ape), Joel Potrykus (Ape)
Rating:
Runtime: 97 min
by John DeSando
“I may live badly, but at least I don't have to *work* to do it.” Hitchhiker from Richard Linklater’s Slacker.
The slacker, Marty (Joshua Burg), in his titular reference, Buzzard, is more socially disaffected than Napoleon Dynamite and scarier in a covert sense than Freddie Krueger. In all, this comedy drama is a witty allegory about teen anomie and an indictment of a society that constructs barriers through bureaucratic indifference.
Marty is a small time scam artist, mostly stealing checks from his temp work at a bank to trading in discarded McDonald’s sandwiches from the garbage for fresh ones. All the while this metal meathead has a poster of Freddie and a glove with knives for digits. You guessed it: If director
Joel Potrykus places the glove in a shot early on, chances are we’ll see it later on in a far less sedentary shot.
Yet meanwhile, Marty is pulling little cons with motel room access and check kiting and generally avoiding the law. He is alternately loveable in his counterculture way and menacing when faced with authority he doesn’t respect. Through most of the film, Marty is an amusing though disreputable slacker, a temp worker ripping off the bank he works for and a buddy only temporarily engaged while he thinks of his next low-level crime.
“Buzzard” should get the year’s prize for the most accurate title in film. Marty feeds off the carrion of society while he literally does so in his McDonald’s larcenies. Until the climax, he evades the authorities, who must by now be up to his game. Without focusing on his criminal activities, an inference could be drawn that society needs to be vigilant and proactive to help these Napoleons have meaningful lives. Otherwise, Freddie has spawned a most lethal buzzard.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
