Bobby Mortal

I rented this and was really pleasantly surprised by the film. The quality of everything, from the writing, to the direction, to the acting gives the film a fresh feeling and keeps it moving at a brisk pace with enough interesting characters that it never gets bogged down.

Bobby Mortal is like so many of us - a victim of his own bad choices. He may come off a little disgruntled but doesn't blame anyone, instead just soldering on no matter how things are imploding around him. A very easy character to relate to and pulled off in a very natural manner by Ron Barba. These kinds of characters are really easy to smaltz up as the "born loser" type of character is an easy one to overplay and go too far, coming off more as a sad sack that you can't relate to or feel bad for, and in some cases you can start to dislike. Instead Ron Barba gives this character an interesting depth by playing him as someone who knows that sometimes things just go pear shaped and all you can do is power through it. It goes a long way to making the character relatable and makes it hard to dislike him. Bobby Mortal comes off as the kind of guy that if you told him, "You suck!" he'd just shrug and say, "Yeah, I know pal, what do you want me to do about it?"

We follow Bobby, a stand up comic, through his day as he comes into contact with a host of interesting characters. From his brother who's being held at gunpoint by a drug dealer he owes money to, to Bobby's ex-wife who shows up at Bobby's apartment in Manhattan and lets herself in; their exchange setting the tone for the film. She's clearly not emotionally invested in him anymore, yet she still needs something from him. A similar tone seems to carry through all his interactions through the film. Poor Bobby, the guy who can't get his own life together, yet everyone seems to need something from him to keep their own lives on track.

We meet one of Bobby's friends, also a (incredibly bad) stand up comic who wants Bobby's advice on his routine. We listen to Bobby's friend tell jokes in the worst delivery possible while Bobby gives hilarious one word critiques. There are actually quite a few interactions that flesh out Bobby's world, which is impressive given the moderate 1:08 runtime. Rodney Ferrer's brisk direction keeps things moving fast and never lets things get bogged down. The music stays out of the way and especially provides a nice ambience in the last scene for what's going on.

All of the characters are well written and well acted. There's a surprising amount of complexity displayed in each character which is impressive given how little screen time each character has. In fact, if there's something bad I can say about the film is that it introduces a large amount of very interesting characters and quickly hints at Bobby's relationship with them - it really leaves me wanting to know more about each character. This is a film that I can easily see a sequel or two for, but following the same format. Quick interactions that just connect a little more of the dots each time.

The film takes an unexpected turn near the end that I didn't see coming and it caused me to instantly watch it again. The beauty of this film is that on your first watch it comes off one way and then seeing the direction it takes at the end completely changes every interaction in the film upon rewatching it.

These days the word "indie" can be a dirty word. Video cameras and editing software are ubiquitous and there's no shortage of so-called indie "films" - most of which are badly shot, written, and acted. It's really refreshing to see an independent film that clearly a lot of work went into from the writing, to the acting, to the directing and it shows. It's well worth the rental and the watch - give it a shot. You'll be pleasantly surprised.