The Shot

Dern Reel (Dan Bell) is a serious-minded "Method" thespian who turns down movie or TV jobs he feels aren't Brando material even though he's broke. Reel and parasitic roommate Patrick St. Patrick (Michael Rivkin) are disgusted by an untalented colleague (Michael DeLuise) landing the lead in "Burnt Sienna Sunset," a blockbuster by hot director David Egoman. To get even the duo sneak into Egoman's mansion during a private screening of the film and steal the final cut. But a mystery attacker shoots, stabs, and bludgeons the much-despised Egoman.

With the great man comatose, St. Patrick realizes the snatched celluloid is their "shot" at success. He and Reel try to ransom it to studio honcho Sheila Ricks (Mo Gaffney), unaware she has already re-edited the film to suit her own agenda and plans to set them up.

A confrontation between the gun-toting exec and the protagonists is interrupted by the timely arrival of the police and Sheila's arrest for the assault on Egoman, who, incredibly, recovers from his multiple traumas. Hailed as heroes, Reel and St. Patrick star in a glamorized reenactment of their own story--but Reel quits when he accidentally discovers who really knifed Egoman. Egoman was wounded by just about every other major suspect--except Durn Reel--in a spontaneous outburst of vengeance. Wanting no part of his roommate's self-serving whitewash, Reel goes back to doing florid Tennessee Williams productions with his actress girlfriend.

While THE SHOT finds easy targets in well-worn La-La Land complaints like tyrant moguls, health nuts, parking tickets, violence-obsessed LAPD and miscellaneous weirdoes, the solid foundation of the comedy is the team of Bell and Rivkin as well-matched losers. Reel may be a lunkhead, but he's principled, while the sponging St. Patrick eagerly joins the studio system he scorns. Their byplay is consistently amusing, whether the subject is murder or a missing 20 bucks.

THE SHOT calls to mind JIMMY HOLLYWOOD (1994), but predates Barry Levinson's portrait of Tinseltown fringies. Actor-playwright Bell, an alumnus of the Lee Strasberg Institute with a recurring part in the WAYNE'S WORLD comedies, concocted the farce years earlier as an L.A. theater piece and reworked it as his filmmaking debut. Using his earnings from WAYNE'S WORLD (1992) and its sequel, private investors, volunteers and support from the Sam Raimi and DeLuise clans, Bell completed the handsome-looking feature for a remarkable $40,000--in 1995 terms, less than the cost of many short subjects--though Bell and his producer eventually had to undertake distributing the comedy themselves.

Bell reprises his stage character based on himself in younger days. Another cast notable, New Zealand auteur Vincent Ward (MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART), hams it up as a crazed scriptwriter. Dana Carvey heard Bell discuss THE SHOT on the set of WAYNE'S WORLD 2 and talked his way into a cameo: with only an hour before leaving to do THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE (1994), Carvey dropped by to play himself, a star who awes Reel and St. Patrick in a sidewalk encounter. (Violence, profanity, alcohol use) leave a comment