Written by: PBF
If you have ever seen the films of Kevin Smith, you will notice that he usually works with a lot of the same people in each one. Most, if not all of them are his friends, and it is quite apparent that they all have a passion for film. Smith's production company View Askew, has given us a few films that were made by some of these friends, and A Better Place, written and directed by Vincent Pereira, is one of them.
Barret (Robert DiPatri) is a new student and is pushed around quite a bit. While he doesn't really fight back, he does somewhat defend himself verbally, and pretty much all of his altercations are stopped somehow before they progress. A teacher may come in to a classroom, or in one case because Ryan (Eion Bailey), steps in. Another student, Todd, is pushing Barret around, and Ryan expresses his concern that Todd never picks on someone his own size, and challenges him to a fight. Ryan ends up breaking Todd's nose, whereas he only gets a fat lip. Barret finds Ryan after school and they start talking and learning about each other. We find out that Ryan is quite a misanthrope and believes "The more people that die and the less that are born, the better." We also learn that his parents are dead (at the beginning of the film we are also told that Barret's father died, prompting the move to a new town) and that he lives with this Aunt. Barret still refuses to back down when picked on and other students who used to give him shit, befriend him, and this bothers Ryan, who is still troubled by his parents' death. This and an accidental death of a man causes a rift in Ryan and Barret's relationship, and Ryan slips into madness (but not cheesey independent film madness, actual realistic and restrained madness). What results is a very decent first film for Pereira, especially when you consider its budget was only $40,000.
This movie was never at any point bad, but was fairly mediocre there for a bit. There are a lot of lines that are supposed to be "clever," and to some extent they are, but more so in a Mallrats way, where they seemed forcefully inserted into dialogue rather than being organic. This did not last for very long. It almost seemed as if the scenes may have been shot in order, as there is a lot of awkwardness during interaction, but as the movie goes on, this seems to disappear. At one point I was convinced that Jason Lee (whose role is brief) was the best actor in this thing, which can be a worrisome thing. But as the film went on, I realized that Eion Bailey is actually quite good. Especially during a scene at the beach where Ryan and Barret are talking about God. He simply does a fantastic job of going from a lonely, misanthropic recluse to finally being pushed across a line that there is no crossing back over. It is well played and there is a logical and believable transformation there, and it is not exaggerated in any fashion. No one in the movie was terrible by any means, but not very many of them had (or still have today) any experience acting. Many familiar faces from the View Askewniverse show up from Ethan Suplee to Carmen Llywelyn. In fact, even some lines from other films can be heard. Lee Bendick, for example in Clerks, plays Wynarski. After giving Dante shit about Randall being late to open the video store, he leaves his keys on the counter of the Quick Stop, which Dante promptly throws away. Wynarski and Randall cross paths outside and he asks if Randall has seen the keys. Randall replies, "No time for love Dr. Jones." Wynarski replies, "Fuckin' kids," not picking up on (or just not appreciating) the Temple of Doom reference. Bendick is also in this film and also says, "Fuckin' kids." Another line that appears in another movie is, "Not that it is any of your business, but no." This line is spoken by Barret in the film, but is also a line from Dogma, spoken by Scott Mosier (who has a brief appearance in this film), who edits and produces a lot of the View Askew films, and is basically Kevin Smith's partner in crime. In fact there are a few other Dogma "references," which is funny as the movie was not released until 1999. "Dogma rulz," is seen in graffiti on a wall, and there is mention of Asbury Park, NJ, which is where the opening scene of Dogma takes place, where we see God (who is discussed a few times in A Better Place), while in the body of a homeless person, get beaten. Such is life in the View Askewniverse, however. You will have to get past some of the photography. During some parts of the film, it goes from normal indie film quality look to high school filmstrip quality for no apparent reason. I assume this was due to budget limitations or something like that.
When this movie was over, I was quite satisfied. A great performance from Bailey and an interesting story definitely make this a decent picture. A excellent first effort from Pereira and worth a watch.
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