Fried Barry: Review

19th June 2021

Barry (Gary Green) is a junkie, a low life and a waste of space. His wife, Suz (Chanelle de Jager) has had enough of his behaviour and kicks him out, only for him to go and get high as he usually does. However, on this particular occasion Barry has an encounter of the third kind and has his body inhabited by an alien.

Awaking from his all-night bender, Barry is now controlled by said alien and it gets to experience the best and worst of humanity first hand. It even gets the opportunity to inject a little of itself into the world as he goes along.

Fried Barry is the feature debut from writer/director Ryan Kruger. Inspired by science fiction from the 80’s, Fried Barry is as much of a love letter to those times of childhood wonder as it is a surreal trip into the fantastical mind of its director.

The film has a lot of things going for it, including its lead who was chosen mainly because of his unique appearance, but Green also manages to put in a funny and likeable performance due to his expressive face and comedic timing.

Fried Barry is not for the feint hearted and it feels like the entire film was meant to be an exploration of the worst kind of debauchery that the filmmakers thought they could get away with. Based on Kruger’s short film, Fried Barry does also seem to be a little stretched out and seems to run out of ideas coming up to the last half hour of the film.

Visually stunning, Fried Barry certainly does showcase Kruger’s artistic eye, but it just feels like there was a bit more padding than perhaps was necessary.

Using references from everything from E.T. to Flight of The Navigator, it’s clear that Kruger has his heart on showing the audience that he’s a movie fan just like them. However, by the end it feels that the story is comprised of many elements of those films in order to finish the story. Fried Barry is certainly a trip, but one that may outstay its welcome.

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