The Investigator (1994) (TV)

Director:

Matthew Tabak

Writer:

Matthew Tabak (writer)

Release Date:

1 December 1994 (USA)

Genre:

Short

Plot:

Strange things happens to a young Private Eye, till he meets a starving young lady |

Cast

Dayton Callie
Frank Collison
Vincent D'Onofrio	...	Ephraim McDougall
Claude File
Anne Heche	...	Lucinda
Frank Medrano
Michael Earl Reid
Rachel Sweet
Blair Tefkin
Donna Wilson

Also Known As:

Vidas Perdidas (Brazil) [pt]

Runtime:

23 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Chanticleer Films

I'm sure there's meaning in there somewhere but I'm b*ggered if I could get it

Ephraim McDougall is a private investigator who investigates claims. When he is approached by a woman with a job, he turns her away as her job is not the sort he usually takes. He then finds himself drawn into a strange series of events.

When this short started it held high hopes for me: a quirky leading man, a strange visual feel to it with a focus on oddities, unexplained and mysterious characters - all these things seemed to be leading it down a very odd road that I thought would deliver a weird but enjoyable twist on the PI genre. However it doesn't manage to go down that road at all - instead stopping off at a service station and ending up stalled on the forecourt! Excuse the wandering metaphors, but it's hard to really know how to describe the film's inability to go anywhere of any value.

The film becomes more of a suggested romance with McDougall finding a young woman that he quite likes. It doesn't really do anything, in fact it has so little meaning that I was taken by surprise by the fact that it ended - in my mind it had yet to even start! This wasn't just my expectations not being met, it was the fact that the film did nothing - never mind meeting my expectations! It is all the more irritating as it managed to create a visual style and other-worldly feel that offered hope but then just held it at this level.

D'Onofrio is OK in the lead role and he contributes to the feeling of it being a little weird and otherworldly. It is a shame he is so badly served by the material. During the film he had a look of a man lost and unsure of what is going on - I assumed that this was part of the film but I now believe it was because D'Onofrio had as little understanding of the short film as I did.

Overall, this starts well and clearly had potential if the film had wanted to continue along the road it started on. Instead it stalls along the way and becomes a mostly meaningless short film that manages to lose it's audience in a very short time.