"A Mind-Bending Good Time"

Saul Goodman is a short, animated, crime-story film by Jim Connell, the creative force behind Avant Guard films. It's brevity and concise timing make it a fun and engaging short film to pass a half hour bending your brain. Why? Because it's a crime story, one of those films that pieces itself together with the unravelling of the story. Remember The Usual Suspect? It's like that, but animated and short, so it's a bit like films that are traded cheaply for a quick watch on mobile players while people have free time during the day. I like the idea of America adopting this new trend in micro-entertainment. We've already put an iPod in just about everyone's hands, so it will only be a matter of time before short films like Saul Goodman are available for download. I for one would enjoy viewing films of this quality on my 25-minute train commute to work in the morning, and think this may be in the future.

Since we're discussing a short animated film, take the ratings I give in context to other short animated films...so don't tell me I'm giving this a better rating than many Hollywood films, because the two are not comparable. These ratings apply to this genre of films, digital shorts...and what is possible with them...and should not be thought of in competition with major motion pictures. Anyway, back to the film. Connell gives life to a crime story that would take a lot of money, explosives, actors, and special effects to make traditionally with film by using CGI. The quality of animation is about as great as you would expect with the film preludes on recently released Xbox or PS games, but the story is brainier and exciting.

There are really only a few main characters, two of whom meet in a train station--both apparently missing the departing train by seconds. As they wait in the lobby, the old man begins telling the young man a complicated story while the two watch police standoff with an armed hit and run driver on television. At first, the young guy is uninterested in the old man's tall tale, of course, and humors him. But as the story begins unravelling he becomes more genuinely interested.

The story goes like this. The old man has all this inside information about a politician and the behind the scenes conspiracies that haven't made it into the public. There's murder, sex, and good old fashioned drama that all seems to be linked together. There is even a scene of a pop princess getting taken for a ride by the politician mentioned earlier. Connell's script is tight and witty, with its pace executed well by the actors (John Cammarata and Eric Scheiner). The score by Ricardo Poza plays precisely with the animation and momentum of the plot, giving the play by play an easy listening quality.

Overall, the quality of the animation is as I mentioned before, but there are colorful moments during the storytelling sequences that are especially brilliantly executed. Apart from a few awkward moments with movement in the start that wouldn't appear in a major studio production, the animation quality is quite sound. Saul Goodman will be showing at the Luis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival, New Hampshire Film Expo, and Connecticut Film Festival in October 2006.

If you have a chance, be sure to check it out. It's a mind-bending good time, full of paranoia and borderline schizophrenic moments... and it's cool as hell to see someone follow through with their ambition to make a good, short, animated flick.