Knuckle Draggers (2009) - By Duane L. Martin

Film Reviews: Knuckle Draggers (2009) - By Duane L. Martin
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 @ 01:17:35 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

You know, it's refreshing when a film actually tells it like it is, and I can't remember seeing one that more clearly defined the truth about relationships between men and women than Knuckle Draggers. To start, here's a quick description of the film from IMDB, written by the film's writer and director, Alex Ranarivelo...

"Knuckle Draggers" takes a realistic, but comic look at how the behaviors of men and women have evolved very little since the caveman times. When Ethan, the needy nice guy, is dumped by his fiancee, he asks his misogynist older brother Kyle to help him win her back. Kyle tries to teach Ethan how to act like "a real man" and to never put a woman on a pedestal. Repulsed by his brother's harsh views on how to treat women, Ethan ignores his advice and ventures out into the dating world, where he slowly realizes that everything Kyle says seems to be true.

That description gets to the core of the film, but it doesn't tell you everything. There's actually a lot more going on in this film than just a guy dispensing relationship advice to his brother. There are two other couples that are focused on as well who are both having problems relating to the very things that Kyle (Paul J. Alessi) is telling his brother Ethan (Ross McCall) about relationships. One couple is having a problem in the bedroom, as in...there hasn't been a lot going on in there, and when there is, it's over in like two minutes. The other couple seems ok, but eventually we find out that the boyfriend is cheating. This couple involves a girl named Patricia (Amie Barsky) who is very strong willed and is of the very strong (and vocal) opinion that Kyle is full of crap with all the stuff he's saying about what men and women want in a relationship and how that's been ingrained in humanity since caveman days when those feelings and behaviors were a necessity. Oddly enough, time and again she's proven wrong, because Kyle's arguments just make too much sense. Unfortunately, modern, supposedly enlightened folks just can't seem to bring themselves to admit it.

Knuckle Draggers takes a look at relationships in a very human, but also a very honest way. Though Kyle seems very jaded after he caught his wife cheating on him and the divorce that followed, the things he says are in fact brutally honest and have been shown to be true time and time again without people even realizing it.

The story itself is incredibly well written. A lot of film makers out there could take some serious lessons on how to write a great script from Alex Ranarivelo. These characters are all well crafted and it covers the material with a depth and insight that goes well beyond most of the other "relationship" movies out there.

As for the cast, there's not a bad performance in this film. Seriously, how many films can you say that about? Even the side characters were great. These are people you can identify with and feel for, and they bring out the best in their characters, making them three dimensional and deep, rather than shallow, cardboard cutouts that could have been transplanted from any other romantic comedy out there.

As for the technicals, this film was incredibly well done in every respect. Everything from the sound to the lighting to the editing and even the choices in music were all pretty much flawless, and it's obvious that everyone involved in this film just clicked and were totally on the same page with everything.

You don't often come across a film as well made, as honest and as well acted as this one. It was a pleasure for me to have the chance to review this film, and if you get a chance to see it you definitely should take that opportunity. It's currently making the rounds at various film festivals, but I'm sure a movie as great as this one will be distributed sooner rather than later, so keep an eye out for it. This is one you'll definitely want to add to your collection.

If you'd like to find out more about the film, you can check out the film's website at http://www.knuckledraggersmovie.com.