Review: How To Become A Criminal Mastermind

1st September 2013

By Gordon Foote.

Internet kick-starter projects, and the like, pose an interesting dilemma for reviewers: Is it fair to judge projects with shoe-string budgets on the same scale as their studio backed, multi-million dollar brethren? On the one hand you have the obvious technical limitations brought about by a smaller budget, as well as the assumed point that if filmmakers are offering considerably less in wages, they will not attract the best in the business. While on the other hand, I’ve seen El Mariachi, which was shot for about $7,000 and launched Robert Rodriguez’s career, proving that it is possible to make great movies for next to nothing.

The reason I bring this up, as you’ve probably guessed by now, is that How to Become a Criminal Mastermind is not a movie with deep pockets. Described in the press-pack as having a “micro-budget”, the film seems to wear its humble forging on its sleeve, but is that a boast or an excuse?

The story focuses around Freddie, as sweet and innocent a young man as you could hope to meet, but sadly, Fate has it in for poor Freddie. Within the first few moments of the film he loses his job, his girlfriend, and the bank threaten to take the house he and his grandmother share. Fortunately, Bainbridge, a career criminal looking for a fall-guy for his next job, offers to train Freddie up in the ways of the Criminal Mastermind to help alleviate his financial worries and thus allowing him to keep his house.

As far as set-ups go, it’s not a bad one! The idea of a truly nice individual being tutored in breaking the law is fairly amusing and Philip Weddell’s performance as Freddie certainly gets the character’s child-like, wide-eyed, cynicism-free good nature across very effectively. Sadly, most of the rest of the cast are adequate at best and wooden at worst, barely breathing life into their roles. Prime culprit here is Sam Massey who is uninspiring as Bainbridge, despite a fairly good attempt at borrowing Peter Serafinowicz’s voice for most of the movie…perhaps the micro-budget prevented the rest of him from being in it?

Scriven’s direction is competent and functional, making the most of the picturesque village the film was shot in and masking budgetary issues by keeping all the action within a few small, private residences. There is a strong Edgar Wright feel flowing through parts of the film, especially towards the start, where it’s hard not to notice the Shaun of the Dead inspired scene changes.

So, if the direction is ok and the sets are sound, it must be the cast’s fault this crime caper falls a little flat?

Actually, no. It seems unfair to blame the actors when the script is the real problem. After setting out its fun premise, it seems to put its feet up and just see what happens instead of following up on promises of a clever, witty indie comedy. Too often lowest-common-denominator efforts rear their ugly heads, scaring away the kind of insightful or intelligent material the aforementioned Mr. Wright tends to build his films around. It’s a shame, as the interplay between Freddie and Bainbridge could have been enough as a focal point of the film if a little more TLC had been put in, but the movie never seems to quite hit its stride, favouring to repeatedly aim for the gutter instead of the stars.

How to Become a Criminal Mastermind falters at the most basic of levels: it’s a comedy that isn’t that funny. It’s a shame, as I found myself really wanting it to be a better film, for it to suddenly knuckle down and be what I wished it could be, instead of a flat, under-cooked, comedy with little to say about anything, and without enough laughs for that not to matter.

So returning to our opening question; is it fair to judge an under-funded movie by the same scale that we judge blockbusters? Well, when it comes down to shoddy writing, I think we can. I am a firm believer in the maxim, “You can make a good film about anything” and there are certainly more challenging topics to make interesting than super-crook school, but the script is poor, giving the cast little to work with. A real shame, I was quite looking forward to this one too….

2/5
GF

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