Nothing
inspires less confidence than a protagonist who happens to be a struggling
screenwriter. Yes, you are supposed to write what you know, but if that is the
sum total of your experiences, maybe you were not meant to be the voice of your
generation. Justin Daly probably knows a heck of a lot more about the business
than his scuffling scribe character, considering he is the son of Pia Lindström
and the grandson of Ingrid Bergman. He must know some stories, but he creates
some Elmore Leonard-esque business instead for his directorial debut, The Big Take (trailer here), which opens today
in New York.
Faded
movie star Douglas Brown thought he was back on track. He successfully transferred
all his finances to Panama to hide his assets from his ex-wife and lined up a reasonably
budgeted film as a potential comeback vehicle. However, he could suddenly lose
it all, after an unscrupulous aspiring producer walks away with some
excruciatingly embarrassing CCTV footage. (Frankly, The Big Take could find itself on the receiving end of Social Justice
Warrior wrath for transphobia, but it is still bad for Brown’s business).
Vic
Venitos had the bright idea of blackmailing Brown to appear in the film he is
supposedly producing and to underwrite the $200K production budget, but he really
has not thought this through. Unfortunately, he scrawls his extortion note on a
page of the script, which leads back to his hopeful screenwriter-director, Max
O’Leary. O’Leary is clueless about his producer’s activities, but through miscommunication
and his Ukrainian wife’s surprising fighting chops, they manage to get the
better of Frank Manascalpo, a fixer retained by Brown’s agent, Jack Girardi.
Then things start to get ugly and personal.
By
far, the best thing about Big Take is
the supporting cast of veteran character actors and genre journeymen. Bill Sage
is wickedly droll as Girardi, while James McCaffrey is hilariously dissipated as
Brown. The great Robert Forster seems to be trying to outdo his personal best
for world-weariness as cynical West Hollywood Det. Aborn. Dan Hedaya is also
instantly credible as the hard-nosed Manascalpo. Zoë Bell is appropriately
sinister and even shows a little bit of the action chops she is known for as
Edie, the hired killer. Unfortunately, Ebon Moss-Bachrach’s O’Leary is just a
mushy nothing, right in the center of the film.
