Dir: Paul Schneider | Scr: Paul Schneider | Story: Zene Baker | Ph: Igor Martinovic | Prod: Daniel Carey, Elizabeth Giamatti, Paul Giamatti, & John Limotte | Mus: Wim Mertens | Ed: Annette Davey | PD: Alex DiGerlando | Snd: Fredrick Helm | Cast: Billy Crudup, Paul Giamatti, Kristen Wiig, David Hornsby, Denis O'Hare, Elizabeth Marvel, Anna Camp, Aasif Mandvi, Adam LeFevre
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A man who may or may not be an idiot, a con-artist, a visionary, or perhaps even a combination of all three arrives in a small town hoping to tap up an old friend for money to finance his hare-brained/fraudulent/inspired (delete as appropriate) plan to build and market a rocket belt – a task he achieves with remarkable ease. However, beyond initial financing, things run anything but smoothly, with further funding seemingly impossible to find and relations with their irascible aeronautical engineer becoming ever more problematic by the day. Solid performances, eccentric scoring, and unpredictable plotting combine to generally entertaining effect. However, Crudup feels more than a little miscast and Wiig is painfully underutilised, with the whole thing feeling rather like an allegorical film that’s missing its central allegory. Patchy, then, but generally diverting.
