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Since a boarding house for the mentally disabled was set up in town,
attracting "retards" (called townies here) from the whole
county, citizens have taken different approaches to their new neighbours.
There's a woman (Traci Marks), who has found mute and weird Pricey (Lori
Scarlett) the perfect playmate for her son Jeff (Eddie Brown), while Thad
(Sean Wolf) and Billy (Phil Schmeidel) like nothing better than to play
mean pranks on the townies, only encouraged by Thad's girlfriend Kelly
(Shannon McNamara), who wants them to teach townie Caduceus (Shane
Koltnow), who she thinks is following her around, a lesson. Thing is,
Caduceus is not quite as harmless as he seems to be, and he soon enough
gives Thad and Billy a sound, martial arts-style beating before paying
Kelly a visit, tieing her up and threatening her ... Meanwhile, Pricey
has decided she can no longer take the abuse from most citizens, and she
abducts Jeff as a reaction - without any bad intentions though. Later,
when she is found by the sheriff (Mark Dufour) and brought back, the shock
triggers her to start speaking. Finally, there's also the story of
Dickie (Toby Radloff), who has found a dead woman in the garbage and
decides to take her home and make her his girlfriend. He even has sex with
the corpse before his friend Connie (Michelle Sibits) tells him it's wrong
and he has to get rid of the body. However, while trying to dispose of the
dead woman, Dickie is caught and arrested for murder - which he didn't
commit ... Part message movie, part tearjerker, part black
comedy, sprinkled with martial arts and horror elements, Townies
just leaves one question open: What is this film actually about? It starts
to tell several stories but never properly ties them together or brings even one to a proper close, and
while its mise-en-scene suggests it to be a (wannabe) artfilm, there is
nothing too artistic about the whole thing on a narrative level as the
whole plot (or should I say plots?) is made up of nothing but clichés and
stereotypes, and the fact that not all the actors playing the townies are
even up to their task doesn't help one bit, either. Now I have to admit
I make the film sound worse than it is, Townies is actually mild
entertainment, it's just a film that tries to be memorable but is
forgotten one day or two after watching, and that is the most shallow when
it tries to be profound.
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