Frenemy (2009) - Movie Marathon Drive-Thru Review: Film #14

On the Menu: FRENEMY (2009)
Ingredients: Matthew Modine, Callum Blue, Adam Baldwin, Paul Adelstein and Zach Galifianakis. Directed by Gregory Dark. Run time: 80 minutes. Rated: R.

At First Bite: Picked this up because Galifianakis was on the cover.

Tough to Swallow: The movie is 80 minutes long and, despite being the prominent figure on the front and back on the DVD, Galifianakis is only in the first 25 minutes (and just 13 of those).

The summary on the back of the DVD has nothing to do with this movie:

After a group of friends witness a horrifying crime, they wonder how they were lucky enough to escape, unharmed, while one friend did not. Through this self-discovery they start to understand the meaning of their own hilarious yet twisted fate. As their time starts to run out, the chance at redemption isn't too far behind.

There is no group of friends. There's no hilarity. How is this listed as a comedy?

Modine's laugh and accent are ridiculous.

There's a scene where Mr. Jack (Modine) and Sweet Stephen (Blue) are walking down the sidewalk, and the cameraman goes to pan too early for the end of the scene. I didn't understand why they just didn't reshoot that.

The credit for Steadicam Operator is misspelled as Stedicam Operator.

There are a couple spacing issues in the final bit of the credits starting with "The charactersand events portrayed..." The missing space between "characters" and "and" is one of the mistakes. The other is "... laws,and is strictly prohibited." There should be a space after the comma.

Something to Chew On: It was shown in film festivals under the title LITTLE FISH, STRANGE POND.

Ron Jeremy has a cameo.

Modine is also one of the film's executive producers.

Gregory Dark's other directorial adventures were mostly adult films in the '80s, then soft core skin flicks in the mid-'90s. His most recent mainstream film was SEE NO EVIL with WWE star Kane.

Somehow, 36 people gave this movie a rating of 10 on IMDb.com.

Aftertaste: The characters spout pretentious lines about evil, fate and intuition throughout. I'm not sure what point they're actually trying to make. The movie lacks cohesion even though Mr. Jack tries to explain how all the events are connected because "evil begets evil."

There were two things I liked about this movie: 1) Stephen's rant in the movie theater where he confronts the couple who are talking during the movie, and 2)  Stephen's line "I wish my life were more like a Burt Reynolds movie."

Those two things aside, this movie is 80 minutes of blah.

Another line from the movie seems to point out why I am one of the fewer than 200 people who have seen this piece of crap: "You were more curious than the others."

I guess it was fate that I had to suffer through FRENEMY.

Rating: