The Big Pelvis

Three friends meet up for their monthly attempt to land the fabled fish known as ‘The Big Pelvis’ before their arch-nemesis gets to it first.

It’s that time of the month. The time when ‘The Big Pelvis’ comes out to play and is active enough to be caught, but only for a brief, short window. Three teenage friends who have been searching for ‘The Big Pelvis’ for quite some time now, are together again to go fishing down by the pier, in the hope of landing the biggest catch of their lives. The Cast Master (Jeavons), Knot Master (May), and Bait Master (Mook), who prefers to go by the name of Brad, are all suited and booted in their cargo shorts, tie-string bucket hats, and short-sleeved shirts, ready to take their shot at ‘The Big Pelvis’, while their close rival, Other Brad (Nichols) also wants a piece of the action.

We watch as the scene plays out down by the lake, with the three stooges bouncing off one another in that bumbling, annoying, nonsensical way, as they argue over who should be doing what, and who is the most/least useful in their group. Then thrown into the mix comes Other Brad, who approaches the simplest member of the group on his own first, coming over all nicey-nicey while actually listening to and being considerate of this mostly overlooked of the three friends. Knot Master thinks it might be quite a good idea if they let Other Brad join the group and the hunt for ‘The Big Pelvis’, but when faced with the staunch disdain of the Cast Master and Bait Master/Brad, it soon becomes clear that this is not going to happen.

So, what we’ve got is a home movie style of video, shot on a digital camera, with four friends acting out a scene down by the lake thinking they’re funny, while the world goes on around them in the background. The dialogue at least has been scripted and is then delivered, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any good or makes any real sense to anyone outside of the group, or that the performances are any better for it. The direction and sound are as basic as they can possibly get, with a home camera being pointed in people’s faces as they stand around statically talking with one another, and everything being picked up ‘as is’ from in front of the lens and the microphone.

There’s also some background incidental music as well as a process of editing going on behind the scenes, which helps The Big Pelvis mark itself out as an actual production, but beyond that there’s very little for the viewer to enjoy. It seems as though the teenagers behind the film wanted to make some jokes around their idea of ‘the fish that got away’, and their puerile humour comes through at every mention of The Big Pelvis and the fact that ‘they want their shot at it’, or they ‘don’t want to distract it from coming’, and other such basic double-meanings. It’s obvious that ‘The Big Pelvis’ is a metaphor for sex and judging by the poor, poor quality of this film, it’s something that the filmmakers are going to be chasing after for quite some time.