Spring Break
"Delivery" is a DVD Dud
A DVD Review
Frank Miller
Issue date: 2/6/07 Section: Features
See if you recognize this setup: a slacker works a dead-end job, earns little pay, all while maintaining aspirations of moving up in the world, but never actually realizes those dreams. Meanwhile his stoner friends offer up non-sequitor nuggets of half-baked wisdom to alleviate the protagonist's spirits.
Sounds like the plot for many of the films that are made for the "Clerks" crowd, right? One could argue that since the plot has been repeated so many times, it could be considered a winning formula.
Meet the film that hammers the last nail in the coffin for that dead horse, "The Delivery Boy Chronicles."
"Chronicles" takes the aforementioned simple formula and renders it completely un-watchable. The film's production quality is so bad, I half expected people to start undressing and engaging in soft-core porn antics as you might find on a late night Skinemax movie.
Director Stacey Childers mistakes head-scratching, inexplicable events for randomly funny occurrences. For example: throughout the film, a man dressed in a camel suit spouts profanity laden speeches (the tell-tale sign of a script simply aching to be "edgy"), a character engages in a car chase for no discernable reason, and another character eats the mushrooms harvested from ostrich excrement.
On paper it sounds like it may have potential, barely. However, the execution is handled with such ham-fisted direction and the performances so over-acted, it's a test of will simply to refrain from pressing the "stop" button on the DVD remote.
Making his film-debut, singer Shawn Mullins of "Lullaby" fame is the only recognizable name. On the DVD jacket, Filmthreat.com claims that Mullins is the exception to the rule that singers can't act. Seems to me they might have shared in on those ostrich mushrooms and have forgotten about Dwight Yoakam in "Sling Blade" or Eminem in "8 Mile," just to name a few.
Mullins certainly isn't the exception to the rule, but he might not be half-bad if he hired an acting coach.
The film was submitted to several minor film festivals and didn't receive a wide release but judging by the content viewed on the disc it's probably best that they steered clear of that money-sucking black hole.
Sounds like the plot for many of the films that are made for the "Clerks" crowd, right? One could argue that since the plot has been repeated so many times, it could be considered a winning formula.
Meet the film that hammers the last nail in the coffin for that dead horse, "The Delivery Boy Chronicles."
"Chronicles" takes the aforementioned simple formula and renders it completely un-watchable. The film's production quality is so bad, I half expected people to start undressing and engaging in soft-core porn antics as you might find on a late night Skinemax movie.
Director Stacey Childers mistakes head-scratching, inexplicable events for randomly funny occurrences. For example: throughout the film, a man dressed in a camel suit spouts profanity laden speeches (the tell-tale sign of a script simply aching to be "edgy"), a character engages in a car chase for no discernable reason, and another character eats the mushrooms harvested from ostrich excrement.
On paper it sounds like it may have potential, barely. However, the execution is handled with such ham-fisted direction and the performances so over-acted, it's a test of will simply to refrain from pressing the "stop" button on the DVD remote.
Making his film-debut, singer Shawn Mullins of "Lullaby" fame is the only recognizable name. On the DVD jacket, Filmthreat.com claims that Mullins is the exception to the rule that singers can't act. Seems to me they might have shared in on those ostrich mushrooms and have forgotten about Dwight Yoakam in "Sling Blade" or Eminem in "8 Mile," just to name a few.
Mullins certainly isn't the exception to the rule, but he might not be half-bad if he hired an acting coach.
The film was submitted to several minor film festivals and didn't receive a wide release but judging by the content viewed on the disc it's probably best that they steered clear of that money-sucking black hole.
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