Deadbeat at Dawn

Jim Van Bebber seems to be a man with absolutely no impulse control...and thank god for it. Moving with the brash logic of a couple of 12 year old boys playing army in the backyard, Deadbeat at Dawn is curious and compelling, trashy and brilliant. You want cult? You want guilty pleasure? You want guys getting throwing stars lodged in their heads? This movie has it all and then some. At first glance, you may dismiss this as cheapjack filmmaking (the thing looks like a drive-in movie), but trying to shut it off is near impossible. You will be sucked in; you will be fascinated. And if Van Bebber isn't a guy who deserves a shot at the brass ring with a real budget and a real crew, I honestly don't know who is. Not only does he shoot action sequences with some of the most urgent and alive camera work I've seen in awhile, he also does his own stunts--some of it crazy Jackie Chan level stuff. Watching him get dragged around by a car at the end of the flick, I just sat there wondering how this guy didn't end up in a hospital or worse.

While watching Deadbeat @ Dawn I was having a pretty difficult time trying to put a finger on what my feelings were about this film until Keith from the Ravens (I think that's who it was) took a swig of Jack Daniels and chased it w/ a mouth full of Bush beer. I laughed gagging (not the first and definitely not the last time while watching) because that was exactly the taste that this movie was leaving in my mouth : bitter/sour and cheap but a pretty wicked buzz after awhile. Producer/writer/director/actor/editor/stunt choreographer/ special makeup effects artist Jim Van Bebber pulls off some fairly excessive stylized screen violence w/ a minuscule budget but the weakly scripted directionless performances stretches it thin. It's amateur shines through in many scenes containing dialogue and lose editing (especially in the first half) throwing off the pacing; making a fairly short film seem long in the tooth. In the end it feels like Troma w/out any zaniness…Well a little zaniness. Ninja stars and golf club beatings are pretty zany.

...and it´s a damn shame. DEADBEAT is one of the best action flicks ever, a rare gem. a simple plot, unknown actors, and mind-boggling fight scenes. it´s a pity that we lost jim van bebber to drugs, he would have been the new sam peckinpah.

If you liked playing Double Dragon on your Nintendo, you will love this movie! It's about the kind of blokes you'd have in the video game but now it's just about as psycho crazy and atmospheric as Abel Ferrara's Driller Killer. A street-brawler kid quits his gang to live with his girl, but off course it's not that easy to turn his back on the gang.. It's a very simple plot, but it has a certain style and intensity that make up for that lack of complexity. The style, to compare, is a bit between Driller Killer and Richard Kern's short films (The Hardcore Collection). A sometimes psychotic montage with lots of stylish and semi-shocking images and great action scenes with intense gore and a haunting musical score. Or maybe it was just really good weed. Who knows..

This is a particular dangerous movie for teenage boys to watch as it'll likely result in them squandering whatever industrial potential in favor of pursuing a lifetime in the arts. Jim Van Bebber somehow, with 80's technology, was able to write, direct, make special effects, choreograph the martial arts, and star-in this mini-masterpiece shot on a micro-budget.

Heavily inspired by a handful of films including THE WARRIORS and CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the film doesn't star anyone you would recognize and is set in a decaying rustbelt city Dayton, Ohio where you'll probably never go. It lacks the familiarity of Hollywood productions, or even of B-movies, and has an unrelenting ugly crudeness to it (including the acting and sound quality). It makes up for these numerous shortcomings though by being so insanely energetic and outrageous. Van Bebber's performance never wavers and his cinematographer Mike King does an excellent job capturing the fight scenes and urban blight.

This film has a lot of goofy scenes and nonsequiters but gives you the impression of some kind of underlying genius behind the whole affair. I think it's kind of a shame that Van Bebber never was able to make a big, mainstream film but then again I'm sure he would not have done well in the studio system. He comes off as something of an obsessive Orson Welles-type cinema savant who unfortunately peaked early, though his short films are even more expertly crafted.

The handmade, rough-around-the-edges quality of the film, coupled with its high entertainment value could easily inspire anyone watching the film to want to get their friends together and make a similar film. It makes the process look both fun and accessible, and personally I can say it heavily impacted my decision to get into the business (for better or worse).