Rogue Cinema - Beat the Bastard Down (2006)

Beat the Bastard Down (2006) - By Jordan Garren
Posted on Wednesday, November 01 @ Mountain Standard Time by Duane

I recently received an e-mail from out of the blue from Jimmy Traynor, an indie auteur that has made well over one-hundred films in a variety of genres. The title of his latest film, Beat the Bastard Down was up for grabs so I decided to go for the gold and give this movie a try. And I am extremely glad I did! Beat the Bastard Down was filmed in thirty-two hours and apparently Jimmy was the only one who knew the plot! That in and of itself is amazing, even more so now that I've seen the final product! BBD follows the exploits of Phil, a real-estate salesman that is awesome at talking people into buying houses... and even better at talking women into taking off their pants!

Unfortunately for Phil, he turns out to be too good and soon finds himself being stalked mercilessly by Vivian, his boss! Poor Phil is soon looking over his shoulder everywhere and is eventually under Vivian's complete control after he accidentally shoots her husband. (Or did he? Plot twist!) But why is Vivian such a psycho you may wonder? Because she's been indulging in a veritable woman's bible called Beat the Bastard Down! (Written by Anita B. Dick! Hahahahaha! Get it?!) Apparently this book is the official guide to stomping a man's ego to dust before conquering his will to live! (Thankfully this book doesn't actually exist... I hope.)

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel for Phil my friends because he has two crazy "play-uh" friends that don't take kindly to seeing their main man getting dominated by some crazy b*tch! With a little of their help, Phil takes back control of his life, but his insane experience has changed him. After escaping from Vivian, Phil goes around and apologizes to all the women he used for sex and tries to set things right, but he quickly finds himself being pulled into another dominatrix relationship (his "friend" Patty has apparently just gotten herself a copy of Beat the Bastard Down). At the end of the film, Phil heads out the front door in order to escape a fate that is much worse than death!

Beat the Bastard Down is an impressively good movie, especially considering all the time and budget constraints Jimmy Traynor had to deal with. (I still can't get over the fact that he filmed it all in thirty-two hours! That's gotta be a world record!) Since Jimmy was the only one that knew the story, I suppose that the cast was mostly ad-libbing their lines and if so, then they all did an awesome job. And out of all the castmembers, I have to give Steven Kovalic (Phil) some major props for his acting ability. He made his character amazingly charming and egotistic, and he clearly had a lot of fun with his role. All in all, I loved Beat the Bastard Down! It's funny, it's offbeat, and rarely, if ever dull! (Plus it has a cool blooper reel after the end credits!) So now comes the bad news....

This movie is not yet available to the masses (as far as I know) so it'll be a little while before anyone (except for lucky reviewers and critics like myself) will be able to watch it. So, to keep up to date on Beat the Bastard Down, information on its future DVD release, and info on Jimmy Traynor's other films, visit www.jimmytraynor.com today! My only complaint now is that I've had a taste of what Jimmy can do, I want to see more of his films! Past, present, or future! I don't care! I need more Traynor, stat!