As a child, Caleb (Luke Dorman) was traumatized when he had to witness
his father (Reg Taylor) shooting his mother (Courtney Guest), then
himself. Since then, Caleb has started to draw graphic novels excessively,
creating a world he could feel safe in, a world he would hide in ever so
often. Now, Caleb (as a grownup played by Andrew Udell) has created a
new character, Seth, a character closely resembling his father (and thus
also played by Reg Taylor). And in a big shootout in a discotheque, he
pretty much shoots everybody Caleb has come to know in his private graphic
novel world. Only when it comes to killing Caleb, Seth realizes he has run
out of bullets, allowing Caleb to grab a gun and kill him, thus exorcising
his demon. That though is not enough for Caleb to find spiritual salvation
- so he shoots himself, too, just like his father did. Only not in real
life, just in his comicbook world, which he is then able to reenter as a
free man ... Interesting exercise that takes a standard
thriller scene - a violent shootout in a club - and then peels away layer
after layer of reality (or conceit, actually) to finally find the barebone
truth, but without ever breaking the tension of the underlying situation.
Of course, such a concept can't work for much more than ten minutes
(especially since on closer inspection the whole backstory isn't all that
original), but hey, the film is a mere ten minutes in length, which makes
it work perfectly as a piece of entertainment with an intelligent
afterthought.
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