The Mimic

Not sure why I watched this but it was largely a waste with an inexperienced writer/director combo - never turns out well - and unknown actors though some sorta famous old actors pay minor roles --> Marilu Henner, Jessica Walter, and Gina Gershon helped keep my interest a bit. But this definitely centers on the odd, can't-shake-you relationship between Tony and Peter aka "the kid" (names revealed late in film) and it's somewhat interesting for 1/2 hr then it gets old and you're like "when's this over?!" The ending has a weak payoff too, confirming your waste of time. Just add it to the Covid-era pile of rubbish out back.

Don't be fooled by the "high" rating. 4 out of 6 thus far have bothered to give this a rating of 1, because there is no rating for zero. If you don't look at the reviews, you keep waiting to see... (a) OK, is this all there is? (b) Is this ever going to get any better? (c) smart people finally turn this absurd ADD rambling about two male neighbors David and Peter off. Read a book. If you don't have a book, go read the white pages online. Count backwards from 20,000. Look at license plates of cars driving by. Anything is more interesting. Dull beyond belief.

I was primed to enjoy this at the festival but left feeling uncomfortable. The narrator was creepy and the main character was funny but boring. It is a jumbled and hard to follow series of events that is unusual but not worth the time of a full length film.

Greetings again from the darkness. It has been said that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Writer-director Thomas F Mazziotti has not only based this story on his own real life experience, but with it proves that imitation can also be the sign of a psychopath. In fact, as the film begins, we are informed that 1 in 25 people are psychopaths, and also playing a role here is "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us", a 2005 book written by Martha Stout.

This is an unusual film with an offbeat rhythm. It reminds me a bit of CREEP, the 2014 movie starring Mark Duplass, in that the characters all seem like someone we could know, yet there's something a bit off. Thomas Sadoski ("The Newsroom") is Tony, a lead character, narrator, and a widower. Tony has not adjusted to life without his wife, and part of the reason could be how his friends and neighbors are always bringing it up. Once the "Kid" shows up, Tony is taken on a ride that has him questioning not just other people, but reality.

"Kid" is actually Peter (Jake Robinson), a 31 year old, red pants wearing newcomer to town. He seems to fit right in with the elderly local newspaper ladies as they bicker about semi-colons, but his real attraction is to Tony - proclaiming "we're on the same wavelength" after a few 'coincidental' meet-ups. It's tempting to label this as a battle of nitwits, but neither of the men lack intelligence. They are both just awkward, and that includes Tony, our trusted narrator.

The film is basically a puzzle with numerous separate pieces loosely packaged as a series of vignettes that may or may not tie together. The segments certainly provide a showcase for a plethora of recognizable actors. The list includes: Austin Pendleton, Gina Gershon, Jessica Walter, Didi Conn, Marilu Henner, Tammy Blanchard, Matthew Maher, Jessica Keenan Wynn, Josh Pais, and Steve Routman. One segment I found particularly entertaining featured Doug Plaut and the legendary M Emmet Walsh as a writer and director discussing a project.

For the most part, it just seems the film, the writers, and the characters are all trying so desperately to be witty, clever, or funny, that whether it works as a cohesive project gets kind of pushed aside. The background circus music fits well and complements the theatrical pacing and cadence. Mazziotti's film is certainly not cinema-as-usual, and it will likely find a cult following ... perhaps among those bonding "on a personal pronoun basis."

It's like when someone assumes they're artistic just because they're bad at math. It tries way too hard to be smart but falls flat on execution. Messy metaphors and convoluted dialogue that attempts to unravel the main character's fight to identify his own flaws.