Cover Art

Credits

Director: Sam Voutas Starring: Sam Voutas, Melanie Ansley, Bruce Solibakke, Steve Van Spall, Katrina J. Kiely Screenplay: Sam Voutas Tagline: One crash test dummy will fight back. Country: Australia

A writer is kidnapped by Motorkore because he's written a tell all book about the sordid past of crash test dummies, including those used by Motorkore. They give him a number, and take away his name, turning him into a living crash test dummy. Motorkore use him in their quest to create the perfect car, and it seems he may develop into an exceptional dummy. Too bad for Motorkore, he also retains a fighting spirit, which leads to the whole vengeance seeking thing I mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Writer/director/star Sam Voutas does a good job with this sometimes surreal, visually interesting film, also adding some nice, quirky touches of humour. The film's obvious low budget really only gets in the way in terms of creating car crashes, which are never fully seen as they happen. Performances vary somewhat, but are often solid, though some are intentionally over the top. Voutas only has a few faltering moments as our hero, and Bruce Solibakke (a fellow Seattleite also now living in Melbourne. He and I could talk about…something) makes a good impression as Voutas' hulking cellmate. It was a bit odd hearing Solibakke use Australian phrases, but maybe that's just me.

Kudos also go to Voutas for giving his film a good, diverse soundtrack. With so many quality bands around who will license the use of their music very reasonably, I always get annoyed when crap music fucks up an independent film. While the actual score can get melodramatic at times, the inclusion of one of Melbourne's best bands, Mach Pelican, made me extremely happy. On the negative side of the soundscape, a peaceful dove can clearly be heard cuckooing in one scene. Maybe it's because I used to have 30-40 of those goddamn things outside my window every morning, but that sound just drives me insane!