There
are people out there whose driving ambition is to go viral. Not Alkis Vidalis.
He is no genius, but he understands people usually go viral for bad things—painful
things. That is especially true of the “if-you’re-watching-this-I-must-be-dead”
video he just recorded to clear the name of a very crooked dirty movie mogul. He
was supposed to be relocated under a new identity, but Vidalis can tell they
intend to fake-it-so-real. Vidalis is no fighter, but he will run, hide, and
sneak as best he can in Dimitris Tsilifonis’s Do It Yourself, which releases today on DVD and VOD, from
Artsploitation.
Vidalis
was a small-time crook nominally associated with Joseph Forkou’s syndicate, which
is why a final testament video from him implicating Forkou and clearing Daniel
Bezerianos would be convincing. Unfortunately, it would be far more compelling
if he were dead. Not being as dumb as he looks, Vidalis continues to play nice with
Bezerianos’s production team but he slinks away at the first opportunity.
Bezerianos’s dirty video studio is a huge building, so Vidalis hopes to just
find a dark corner to hide in, but that will not be realistic. As the cat-and-mouse
game escalates, Vidalis invites Forkou’s gang to the party. That might be a bit
of an out-of-the-frying-pan kind of strategy, but at least it will shake things
up.
Characterization
in Do It Yourself is not even an inch
deep (and the title doesn’t make much sense), but none of that interests
Tsilifonis. Instead, DIY is a super
slick exercise in rats-in-a-maze action, fully loaded with narrow escapes, near
misses, and darkly comic bloody mayhem, Think of it as vintage Tarantino with
tzatziki sauce.
As
Vidalis, Konstadinos Aspiotis is hardly an electric presence, but he is
credible enough skulking around and getting the snot kicked out of him.
Frankly, the real star is cinematographer Angelos Papadopoulos, who gives it all
an uber-stylish, Michael Mann-esque high-gloss shine. Editor Lambis
Haralambidis also deserves credit for smoothly cutting together all the twists
and doubling-back.
