They might have called it "Revenge of the Nerd".
Out to right humiliating wrongs committed against him by his classmates, a jerky salesman turns his 18-year high school reunion into a hostage-taking situation in "The Reunion".
Billed as an erotic psychodrama but failing on both counts, the indie effort is a clunky bore of an ordeal that plays like an awkward adaptation of a bad play.
Fortunately, it's a reunion that will prove extremely short-lived.
Timothy Devlin plays Louis Witkowsky, the vengeance-taker in question, a highly insecure district sales manager determined to show up all those guys who threw him naked out of the locker room all those years ago.
Despite constant pleading from his wife (Leila Sbatini) to not make a complete fool of himself, his obnoxious attempts to one-up school jocks Hal (Jack Mulcahy) and Joel Patrick Ferraro) fail miserably. That leaves him no choice but to hold them and their trophy wives hostage (in the locker room, of course), along with his wife, his vertically challenged high school buddy Standard (Kristopher Medina) and an all-knowing janitor (Edouard De Soto) and engage in a twisted game of reverse humiliation.
Naturally there are deeply rooted psychological side effects at work here, in which facades are systematically stripped away, leaving a roomful of miserable poseurs who eventually are allowed to leave (sans clothing), but only after our hero has raped their wives. He then takes his own life.
One wishes he had simply cut to the chase. Despite attempts by the cast to make the torment bearable, it's just not humanly possible to overcome the tawdry, pretentious, nonsensical script penned by producer Paul Corvino.
Among the film's various logistics problems, while it is established that the police have arrived minutes after the hostage-taking transpires (as indicated by the constantly flashing red light reflected on one of the locker room walls), the police do not attempt to make contact with Louis until much later in the film. Perhaps they made an extended pit stop at the punch bowl.
The cause isn't helped by Larry Eudene's directing, which appears to be modeled after those "Twilight Zone" episodes featuring a group of people confined in one place, but lacking in crucial dramatic tension and a plausible denouement.
THE REUNION
Good Medicine Films
Asylum Pictures and Esquire Films
in association with Paul Corvino
present a Larry Eudene film
Producers:Tischa Gomez, Paul Corvino
Director:Larry Eudene
Screenwriter:Paul Corvino
Director of photography:Pat Capone
Editor:Robert Fitzgerald
Production designer:Zeljka Pavlinovic
Costumes:Deirdra Govan
Music:Kirsten Vogelsang
Color/stereo
Cast:
Louis:Timothy Devlin
Ashley:Leila Sbatini
Joel:Patrick Ferraro
Standard:Kristopher Medina
Caroline:Mimi Langeland
Felica:Elizabeth P. McKay
Hal:Jack Mulcahy
Santiago:Edouard De Soto
Running time -- 85 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Out to right humiliating wrongs committed against him by his classmates, a jerky salesman turns his 18-year high school reunion into a hostage-taking situation in "The Reunion".
Billed as an erotic psychodrama but failing on both counts, the indie effort is a clunky bore of an ordeal that plays like an awkward adaptation of a bad play.
Fortunately, it's a reunion that will prove extremely short-lived.
Timothy Devlin plays Louis Witkowsky, the vengeance-taker in question, a highly insecure district sales manager determined to show up all those guys who threw him naked out of the locker room all those years ago.
Despite constant pleading from his wife (Leila Sbatini) to not make a complete fool of himself, his obnoxious attempts to one-up school jocks Hal (Jack Mulcahy) and Joel Patrick Ferraro) fail miserably. That leaves him no choice but to hold them and their trophy wives hostage (in the locker room, of course), along with his wife, his vertically challenged high school buddy Standard (Kristopher Medina) and an all-knowing janitor (Edouard De Soto) and engage in a twisted game of reverse humiliation.
Naturally there are deeply rooted psychological side effects at work here, in which facades are systematically stripped away, leaving a roomful of miserable poseurs who eventually are allowed to leave (sans clothing), but only after our hero has raped their wives. He then takes his own life.
One wishes he had simply cut to the chase. Despite attempts by the cast to make the torment bearable, it's just not humanly possible to overcome the tawdry, pretentious, nonsensical script penned by producer Paul Corvino.
Among the film's various logistics problems, while it is established that the police have arrived minutes after the hostage-taking transpires (as indicated by the constantly flashing red light reflected on one of the locker room walls), the police do not attempt to make contact with Louis until much later in the film. Perhaps they made an extended pit stop at the punch bowl.
The cause isn't helped by Larry Eudene's directing, which appears to be modeled after those "Twilight Zone" episodes featuring a group of people confined in one place, but lacking in crucial dramatic tension and a plausible denouement.
THE REUNION
Good Medicine Films
Asylum Pictures and Esquire Films
in association with Paul Corvino
present a Larry Eudene film
Producers:Tischa Gomez, Paul Corvino
Director:Larry Eudene
Screenwriter:Paul Corvino
Director of photography:Pat Capone
Editor:Robert Fitzgerald
Production designer:Zeljka Pavlinovic
Costumes:Deirdra Govan
Music:Kirsten Vogelsang
Color/stereo
Cast:
Louis:Timothy Devlin
Ashley:Leila Sbatini
Joel:Patrick Ferraro
Standard:Kristopher Medina
Caroline:Mimi Langeland
Felica:Elizabeth P. McKay
Hal:Jack Mulcahy
Santiago:Edouard De Soto
Running time -- 85 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/19/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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