The FP
Director: Brandon Trost, Jason Trost
Writer: Brandon Trost, Jason Trost
Cast: Jason Trost, Art Hsu, Lee Valmassy, Caitlyn Folley, Nick Principe, Brandon Barrera, James DeBello
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
The FP, that’s Frazier Park. In the FP, two rival gangs – one headed by BTRO (Brandon Barrera) and the other by L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy) – battle each other by Dance Dance Revolution Beat Beat Revelation. But then BTRO dies in one of these battles and L Dubba E shackles the town by taking over the alcohol supply. BTRO’s brother JTRO (Jason Trost) who had left the FP after BTRO’s death, gets hauled back by his best friend KCDC (Art Hsu) to set things right.

I loved the premise of this film. And about half of the movie works perfectly, but then it grows a little thin. Plus it falls apart basically anytime a woman is on screen.

The movie starts off great. The amount of slang that gets fired off in the first couple of minutes alone had my head spinning in a very good way. And the explanation of why L Dubba E is destroying the town by owning the liquor shop and only giving alcohol to people of his choosing was absolutely brilliant.*

For a low budget film, the movie looks pretty great. They had good locations, brilliant costumes and obviously good cameras. [Though the cinematographer wasn’t as good.] The cast was also surprisingly good – I did not expect much acting at all in a movie of its kind.

But slang, a good premise, decent acting and frankly awesome costumes can only go so far and is not really enough for a feature film. Consequently, the movie is stretched a little thin.

And it doesn’t help either that it’s extremely problematic whenever it comes to its women. First off, there barely are any. Then there are gratuitous boobs and the one woman who gets dialogue is a perpetual passive damsel in distress.

All of that means that the movie doesn’t really manage to achieve its potential, unfortunately.

Summarising: it was alright but it didn’t blow me away.

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*If you don’t plan on seeing the film or can’t wait to hear the explanation, here it is:

Without alcohol, there are no drunk hobos. Without drunk hobos, there is nobody to feed the ducks in the park. Without somebody to feed the ducks, they leave. And what is a town without ducks?!?!