Thursday, April 17, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Film: Humble advice for The Streetsweeper's director James Hill

By Anthony Allison

Dear James Hill,

Thank you for bringing The Streetsweeper to Las Vegas last week for its "world premiere" engagement (the film's recent run in Charlotte doesn't count as a world preem because, as everybody knows, North Carolina isn't actually on planet Earth).

This self-financed release offers an object lesson in the pitfalls of indie flickery and the opportunity for some constructive comments from a humble movie-mad observer who's not a member of your (naturally partisan) circle of friends, family, cast, crew and investors.

You cast amiable Broadway veteran Paul Daniels as the titular driver of one of those humongous street-sweeping contraptions, who abandoned his dreams of opera-singing glory to support his (late) wife and son. Our somewhat unorthodox hero adds to his vehicle's dust clouds and diesel fumes with aural pollution too: He blasts full-volume bits of opera at the bemused San Diego populace from a loudspeaker mounted on the truck. Enter his beloved prodigal son (pretty boy Michael Cavalieri), back from Harvard with love interest (self-assured Kehli O'Byrne) in tow. Cue big revelation about dad's self sacrifice (he's secretly been paying his ungrateful kid's college fees ever since "that little stunt with drugs") and segue into a tearful singalong to the big duet from Bizet's The Pearlfishers.

From there, your film lurches through an unconvincing, tragic twist into mawkish melodrama, before stumbling into a hamfisted action-flick finale improbably pitting streetsweepers against a SWAT squad on the San Diegan mean streets. Face it, this ambitious Hollywood-style setpiece sits ill with a micro-budget mix of family drama, love story, California travelogue and social comment (miserable homeless masses, not-so-happy hooker).

Your website optimistically cites a certain Greek nuptial comedy as an indie-flick model to emulate. But actor-writer Nia Vardalos' upbeat crowdpleaser bears no relation whatsoever to your depressing drama which (SPOILER ALERT) makes the, er, fatal mistake of killing off not just the egotistical son (a smarmy narcissist who richly deserves to die) but our endearingly hapless protagonist too. Moral? Sacrificing everything for your offspring won't bring its own sweet rewards, you'll simply eat shit and die. This ain't the redemptive catharsis of great Greek tragedy. It's just a big fat downer.

In an apparent attempt to lighten the downbeat tone, your soundtrack positively bristles with a grab-bag selection from a Most Hackneyed Operatic Extracts compilation album, with everything from The Marriage of Figaro via Rigoletto and Tosca to "O sole mio," which is viciously murdered by a singing waiter. A last-ditch attempt at operatic uplift comes with "Nessun dorma," from Turandot. (See that other Greek Wedding-style crowdpleaser, Bend It Like Beckham, for an example of how that tired old Puccini warhorse can usefully boost morale.)

Vardalos' $300 million-grossing phenomenon is the exception proving the sobering rule: most indie flicks crash, burn and languish in eternal oblivion. There's a good reason why independent filmmakers often submit their work to film festivals. If programmers accept it and it generates positive buzz or genuine critical plaudits, its chances of success increase exponentially. Foisting your film, untried and untested, on the paying public smacks of cock-eyed optimism at best, hubris at worst.

Not that The Streetsweeper is worse than much mainstream mush (see Bulletproof Monk or Chasing Papi). But absent rave reviews, the unstinting support of the Greek spouse of a big fat Oscar-winning movie star or the obligatory nod from that opposable-thumbed deity Ebert, your film's chances of success in a cutthroat market are less than zero. Maybe it's time to stop flogging a moribund movie horse, cut your losses and move on to the next big fat film project.