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★★★
Directed by: #Shayaan
Starring: Shayaan and others
I live under a rock, it’s fun, cosy even, and by doing so I am free from knowing about celebrity culture, Brexit, the Great British Bake Off and a whole bunch of other dumb shit that does not serve me and so to me, is pointless.
But because of this, I often don’t know what basic stuff is, and today I have had to do a learning and delve into the world of bitcoin...why you may ask? Well duh, it’s the driving source of conflict in director Shayaan’s short film Break Even.
So bitcoin in essence is a form of digital money that is exchanged through users online in exchange for goods and services, in a nutshell, it's just online cash, but it is protected by private keys, [one time a user lost theirs and claimed a loss of over 7500 bitcoin which was something like a million dollars...sucks to be him] so it pays to keep ya digital coin close.
Now I’m sure there is a lot more to how this fake money/real money/monopoly money situation works but I don’t have time, nor do I really care that much...and by care, I mean don’t understand, so let’s move into the movie world of Break Even.
This short tells the tale of three young men, who have become involved in bitcoin, and in the start everything is going well, they can afford top shop t-shirts, M&S meal deals [fancy!] sitting in but not driving somewhat expensive cars...they are living the high life.
But it’s not long before greed rears its ugly head, they all want more, and soon they are all trying to push the others out in order to have more, to get to the private key that holds all the precious bitcoins...I mean without it they may have to go back to the lower class Tesco meal deal...disgusting.
Story wise, this is a tale of corruption and greed, what it does to you and your friendships and as well as that, what it does to your moral compass [ I don’t have one so I’m fine...but again, what the hell is bitcoin?] we see very quickly this friendship turn sour at the expense of expenses.
As well as a study of moral corruption, this #shortfilm has a spicy sprinkling of low level gangster culture, kids running around with masks on, punching each other in the nuggets and making mom jokes...real hardcore Scarface shiz, in honesty it has the feel of Adulthood but with humour and zero budget, the sense of self awareness involved in the film allows us to laugh along with them, and that’s what makes the charm of this short so ...well charming.
Break Even is beyond rough around the edges, sound quality is off at points [but if anyone has made films we know how hard getting good sound quality is], the acting is a little amateur, but directing style is there, some of the angle choices are well developed, we can see that Shayaan has had fun experimenting and being creative behind the camera, and it pays off.
So what, loyal readers, have we learned: if you want to eat M&S lunches you gotta be a rich bitch, don’t do business with your homies and bitcoin is confusing...like really I still don’t get it.
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