Nowhere Man (2005)

You don't usually expect a lot from a "B" movie, but this does have the Queen of Horror, Debbie Rochon, and Lloyd Kaufman, one of the founders of Troma.Conrad (Michael Rodrick) finds out that the love of his life, Jennifer (Rochon) has a sordid past. When he breaks it off, she breaks it off - literally! So, he has to find her and it. What a story.You are not going to find great acting or fantastic sets or much of anything here except a few laughs and a fantastic look at Debbie. Maybe you want more, but maybe this is all you need to get you through the night.

Judging by the reviews on here, this seems like a "love it or hate it" type of film. After watching it, I came away strongly indifferent to what I saw. It's put together very well for the budget range, the technical work (lighting, photography, sound, editing...) is above average for the format (digital video) and it is well acted by both indy horror queen Debbie Rochon and promising leading man Michael Rodrick. What really shocked me was how it fluctuated from intriguing and entertaining to monotonous and unfocused, and how it often did it within the confines of a single scene. Ultimately it seemed to drag on for about 20-30 minutes longer than it should have, and with a running time of around 80 minutes (about ten of which consist of credits and some sorely misused closing credit outtakes), it is simply unforgivable for a film barely clocking in over an hour to drag, seem padded out or become redundant a half hour before the finale. Simply put, there is enough material here maybe for a short, but not a feature film.The structure of the plot doesn't intrigue as much as it annoys - jumping back-and-forth in time is becoming such a cliché now that it's almost expected in a film of this nature. But fracturing the time frame on a script does not add any additional depth to an already slim storyline. Nor does it automatically give it any kind of immediate artistic value. Nor does it heighten any of the suspense. This film would have played out much, much better had it taken place in real time with the events chronologically presented. If we could see the embitterment and desperation of the Rochon character grow and grow without being constantly interrupted, the impact would have been much greater and the violent retribution of her character much more believable. But the filmmakers chose to present it in a certain way and it's too late to go back now... So I'll go ahead and lay out the story chronologically to make the point that the layout isn't as important as content contained within.NOWHERE MAN, which basically attempts to be a black comic play-up on the John and Lorena Bobbitt castration story, deals with a middle class New Yorker named Conrad (Rodrick), presented flatly as a typical male with typical male hang ups, who seems to be in a fairly healthy relationship with his long-term girlfriend Jennifer (Debbie), who he wants to marry and have a family with. One day out of the blue an unmarked video ends up on the doorstep of their shared apartment a la David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY. But instead of the visions of a creepy voyeur, he sees his girlfriend in an amateur porn tape from many years earlier having sex with a well-endowed porn star named Daddy Mac (Frank Oliver). It is then that his jealously, machismo, ego, violent and sadistic temperament and abusiveness kick into gear and he puts Jennifer through an incredibly humiliating and agonizing ordeal before throwing her out into the street. He shows the tape to all of his friends at a party, voices his opinion about what a worthless whore he thinks Jennifer is and, in the films most grueling scene, subjects her to the most impersonal rape-sex scenario imaginable where he refuses her any form of tenderness. Jennifer is thoroughly devastated, confused and dehumanized... so she sneaks into his bedroom one night and cuts off his penis with a pair of shears and runs away with it (one way to cure the male ego problem, eh?). The rest of the film details Conrad's attempt to retrieve his penis before it goes "bad." If he gets it back in a certain amount of time, it's salvageable. By the time it gets to that point, I seriously doubt many people will want him to get his way, so the director appeases his audience's desire for a fiery finish...At best, the film offers a platform for the two lead actors to prove they deserve a shot at better roles in better quality productions. I've always felt that Rochon's talent has been shamefully wasted over the years on films that exploit her looks over her acting chops, so it's nice to see her in a juicier role that actually allows her opportunity to expand on a character. Rodrick is equally fine (not that I gave a f**k what happened to 'Conrad' after a half hour or so) and could hold his own in a more expensive production; he's good looking, appealing and delivers most of his lines believably and naturally. Much of the supporting cast (including Lloyd Kaufman in a brief cameo as a doctor) is amateurish and detract a little from the overall realism, but not enough for that to be an overall factor in this films overall quality. But there is so much untapped potential here... unexplored subtext and worthwhile dramatic content about love, loss and adult relationships that is not even explored... The script doesn't seem to give the characters the right words at the right times... The camera doesn't stay where it should at crucial moments... A lot of it seems half-hearted and unfinished. There IS meat on these bones, but there's no real muscle or flesh. It's not terrible like some are saying, but it's also not a revelation like others would like you to believe. It's a case of being a watchable film that COULD HAVE been so much more.

*********************SEVERE SPOILERS AHEAD.**************************Basically this movie, is about a macho guy turned vigilante trying to find his ex-girlfriend who cut off his penis within 24 hours or so (she has it on ice) so he can get it surgically reattached, then we find through flashbacks that he was treating his girlfriend awful, after he found out she was in a couple porno's, and then eventually rapes her, and then she cuts off his dick while he's sleeping. In the end, She holds his dick for ransom, he promises to pay ransom, when he doesn't have it, she sets his dick on fire in front of him. The END. Okay the acting was good for the most part, if not a little overly intense. The problem with the movie is, firstly, it tries to play this movie straight, like a paranoid action-thriller in an "Hardcore", "8mm" "Ransom" type of way, except it's his penis he's trying to rescue. Sound funny, they play it so straight that there's no laughs. They never get campy once, they want to be ironic but with no irony in the script other than the concept, it's boring, pretentious and ridiculously over serious. Also, it's clumsily edited together like they didn't have enough coverage or know how to edit well, and a lot of the shots are pretty boring and I'm not talking about the fact it's DV but that they're poorly composed, and there is nothing interesting in the sets either. Also, the music is atrocious, and poorly fits the movie. Then ten minutes after we watch an intense rape scene, the movie has it's finale with the penis being set on fire and the man crying out, and then we receive 8 minutes of unfunny blooper footage mixed in with the credits, with a super crappy upbeat song, what the hell were they thinking?! Total train-wreck, like trying to make a fart joke melodramatic.

Chutzpah has a new--perhaps permanent--definition: NOWHERE MAN, an execrable would-be drama, would-be comedy, would-be satire, would-be goof/spoof, would-be Troma-type gore fest (Lloyd Kaufman even has a small role). So many would-be's and not a single be.The height of the chutzpah is using outtakes during the end credits to what has already been one long outtake in itself. Without these dumber-than-usual add-ons, the film would have rolled in at just 70 minutes. With them, it stretches out the insult to 80. Jumping off (and crashing) from the John and Lorena Bobitt tale, the movie plays it mostly straight (very badly) but occasionally veers into leaden satire, which is even worse. The two leads could very possibly be decent actors. But not here. Technically the movie sucks, too, which leaves it without a single redeeming feature.Now that I rethink for a moment, I must admit my earlier mistake: The tip-top height of chutzpah is that fact that this film actually received a theatrical release. Imagine the poor schnooks who paid movie-theatre prices!