Hi everyone!
It’s Friday, so it’s time for another Fantastic Fest feature from Andrew Campbell. He’ll be covering a personal favorite of his from last year today, another excellent feature from A24, but criminally overlooked this year. For a few other recent reviews from Andrew, check out SWEETHEART (Episode #670), IN FABRIC (Episode #674), and 1917 (Episode #675).
Before the review, we’ll have a promo from our friends at the Pop Pour Review podcast! Every week, the PPR crew review a film, then craft a cocktail based on the movie. I don’t drink myself, but I know a few people that do, and every recipe fits in surprising ways. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @poppourreview, or by searching for Pop! Pour! Review Podcast on Facebook. Thanks for all your support last year!
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Here we go!
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<< POP POUR REVIEW PROMO >>
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Hello film fans!
Andrew here. Back this week with one of my absolute favorite films from last year’s Fantastic Fest. I have been itching to cover this one since I first strolled out of the theater. With my favorite indie distributor A24 attached, a ridiculous title and a darkly comedic gem of a story, I figured the film would drop in early 2020 and rake in a few million bucks. Instead, it was released just a few days after the festival and went on to pull in just north of 25-grand in a week-long run at just thirty theaters before being shelved. So there goes my career in film distribution. I have been waiting around ever since for it to hit a streaming service, but now that Amazon Video is letting you own it digitally for just five bucks, I knew it was time to spread the gospel.
Today’s movie is THE DEATH OF DICK LONG, written by Billy Chew and directed by Daniel Scheinert. After a raucous rural Alabama night of band practice, copious amounts of weed and alcohol, and some ill-advised fireworks horseplay (most of which takes place during the opening credits), Dick’s buddies Zeke & Earl (played by Michael Abbott Jr. and the hilarious Andre Hyland) drop off a grievously injured and passed-out Dick in an ER driveway and hightail it out of there. You’re never gonna believe it, but Dick doesn’t survive the night. The next morning, Zeke is jolted back into his normal life with his doting wife Lydia (Virginia Newcomb) and elementary-aged daughter, while dim-witted yet cocky Earl has a few less obligations. Pretending they weren’t aware of Dick’s demise proves much harder than anticipated as both Lydia and the sleepy local police force begin to grow suspicious.
The ensemble cast of DICK LONG is picture perfect. Even if you took out the wild mystery at the core of this film and made a straight-up relationship drama or off-beat comedy, these characters would make that film worth watching. Andre Hyland as Earl is the main standout, delivering and sometimes stumbling over his lines in such a natural way that it feels like he’s either improvising or rewrote his lines in his own voice. He’s an arrogant screw-up and the poster child for arrested development but remains the perfect wingman for Zeke in the lead role. Zeke continues to get by on his boyish charm even as he heads towards 40, which seems to still be working on his wife Lydia. Virginia Newcomb imbues Lydia with devastating emotion when her love for Zeke is challenged by the inevitable truth behind Dick’s passing.
Roy Wood Jr. adds a little comic relief to what’s mainly a dark comedy as Dr. Richter. Meanwhile, Janelle Cochrane and Sarah Baker pull off a keystone cop routine as the town sheriff and rookie officer in way over their heads. All of the actors are fully committed to the peculiar script, with characters making jokes that often belie the gravity of certain situations. Yet it always works, whether it’s the three primary characters or a half-dozen others that slip in and out of the story.
Now’s a good time to mention that there’s a pretty big reveal at one point in the movie that you’ll want to avoid. Shouldn’t be too hard since no one’s talking about this flick. It’s not exactly an M. Night Shyamalan spoiler-ific twist, but it’s pretty big. Big enough that when folks do start talking about this film (maybe Netflix will pick it up) it will quickly become known as the movie about [CENSORED] and that will either keep a bunch of people away from the movie or entice a whole bunch more to watch it.
As director Daniel Scheinert says in his very brief role as the titular Dick Long: “Hey. Y’all m*********ers wanna get weird?” Trust me, the answer is a resounding yes.
What makes THE DEATH OF DICK LONG fantastic? Like most of my favorite films, DICK LONG straddles genres. It manages to be funny without letting its characters in on the joke and never putting them down. There are some gut-wrenching emotional moments when the perspective shifts behind Zeke’s eyes and Lydia speaks directly into the camera. And the core of the film is a taut thriller that takes itself completely seriously even as it ascends into the realm of the absurd. DICK LONG is many things and yet somehow more than the sum of its parts.
THE DEATH OF DICK LONG is an expertly-crafted feat of tension that delivers black comedy and a darker twist. Fans of white-knuckle crime thrillers like A SIMPLE PLAN and FARGO will love DICK LONG.
Rotten Tomatoes: 75% (CERTIFIED FRESH)
Metacritic: 69 (of course it does)
One Movie Punch: 8.8/10
THE DEATH OF DICK LONG (2019) is rated R and is available on VOD. Be sure to follow One Movie Punch on Twitter and we’ll remind you when DICK LONG hits a streaming service.
I’ll be back next Friday for STARFISH, a psychological sci-fi thriller about a snowbound woman facing what could be the end of the world. If you’re a fan of high-concept, low-budget sci-fi, you’ll want to hear about this one.
See you then.
