Cashback (2007)
Directed by Sean Ellis
After a painful breakup, Ben develops insomnia. To kill time, he starts working the late night shift at the local supermarket, where his artistic imagination runs wild.
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This is why half the movie plays out as a greatest-hits homage to the trick camera work of Danny Boyle, Godfrey Reggio, and Jonas Åkerlund (a useless shot of Ben falling onto a bed is a perfect example of how to squander an entire day of shooting; one ray-of-light shot accomplishes nothing but vertically flipping Koyaanisqatsi 's DVD cover art), while the rest occurs as tacky fits of juvenilia, the nadir of which is a bathroom-mirror montage of the story's motley characters getting ready for a party that ends with Ben's best bud whacking off to a nudie mag—his bottle of lotion opportunely evoking the man sploog exploding below the frame.
While this is a film that shows signs of considerable imagination, for which its kernel as a short film won a Best Short Film nod at the oscars, UK auteur Sean Ellis was ill-advised to expand it to feature length except for one factor: the casting of a too-underused actor of brilliance: Emilia Fox ( "The Pianist" ).
The cast, unlikely to be recognizable to American audiences, is uniformly good, starting with Sean Biggerstaff (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) as Ben.
Biggerstaff ( Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone ) is a perfect leading man.
While lacking a finite sense of danger or wonder, “Cashback” recalls “Donnie Darko” in the way both features announce a fresh directorial talent who only needs time to smooth out his rough edges.
…n the same evolutionary ladder as Donnie Darko , Ghost World , The Rules of Attraction , and Art School Confidential , Cashback occupies the lowest, Cro-Magnon rung.
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La Jetee became 12 Monkeys, Peluca begat Napoleon Dynamite, while Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade gave up a few words to be adapted into Sling Blade.
…n the same evolutionary ladder as Donnie Darko , Ghost World , The Rules of Attraction , and Art School Confidential , Cashback occupies the lowest, Cro-Magnon rung.