Far Out

Who knows what is taught in AV clubs across North America these days? What is given to these young, supple, teenage minds to showcase the intricacies and opportunities that film and cinema has to offer? If Far Out from Canadian film-maker Bijan Karim and his team is anything to go by it seems like it is still and only the domain of one man – Quentin Tarantino.

Time and again we, the audience, are subjected to endless references of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) from younger film-makers and it can feel that most of these fit on a sliding scale from nods and sly winks to full-on rip-offs that would make even JK Rowling blush. Far Out lands somewhere upwards of the middle on this sliding scale, mixing brash gangster storylines with extended criminal dialogue, overt misogyny and the crashing together of Sound and Vision helped along by a tub-thumping soundtrack.

Moe Golkar is The Filmmaker, a nerdy, drip of a guy who used to produce his own amateur movies but who was also finding it hard to get funding. In a strange twist of plotting and characterisation he then let loose his alter-ego, aptly named Action Star, who pushed him to get involved in scenarios filled with crazy danger in order that he could secure the money he needed to produce his films. Following so far?

So now, with his reputation at peak levels within the criminal and justice communities, he is approached by the cops to infiltrate and take down the mob's 'Golden Jew', Goldberg (Sirois) in order for him to show whose side he's on and have previous charges against him dropped. Naturally, Goldberg is suspicious of the offer of allegiance from such a prodigious criminal talent as The Filmmaker and he constructs three trials for the sleeper agent to perform to prove he's on the level. Such is the premise for this QT-lite film.

So off we go on a shenanigans based runaround filled with guns, violence, blood spatter, bare minimum marginalised female involvement and the occasional line of coke. It's all a lot of fun, supposedly, and despite the convoluted plotting structure you don't have to engage your brain too much while all the tropes, markers and slow-mo walking scenes play out on screen.

Despite being deliberately fractured and chaotic, Karim's direction is fairly solid throughout shifting between film-noir, Bollywood and other such influences for certain scenes while always following the theme of Tarantino in between. There are some really nice shots from cinematographer, Jason Roberts who uses colour really well and who creates some semblance of professionalism, although not entirely consistently.

Unfortunately the whole thing is headed by Golkar, who is no leading man, in fact he's no actor at all. The Filmmaker is of course a fish out of water and a certain level of naivety is to be expected from his character, but not so much that his delivery is always flat and he can't move with the other actors in the scene. Thankfully he's buffeted by others around him, especially Anant Khehra as the suited goon, Lawrence and Lamont James Brown as rival mob boss, Barry Levenstein who both raise the level of engagement alongside Sirois' gleefully anarchic Goldberg.

For what is very much an amateur production, Far Out does hold itself together fairly well and shows flashes of brilliance which owe nothing of their existence to the auspices of Tarantino. The whole thing is helped immeasurably by a soundtrack which includes easily recognisable floor-fillers from the likes of Howlin' Wolf, Pink Floyd, The Doors, The Who and even The Beatles. The attainment of all the licences from the producers for each of these isn't entirely transparent, especially when they remain uncredited, which does diminish the achievement somewhat. We could all make fast-paced action thrillers with a banging soundtrack if we didn't have to pay our dues. Otherwise Far Out is fine.