The Steaks (2000) Reviews

• good times

  paulbonner332004-07-20

  If anyone can manage to get a copy of this gem, lucky you. Just a fun movie, director Heffernan's first crack at a full-length feature film. Rough around the edges? Yes. A fun watch? Definitely. I'm a little biased, yes (look for me in a cameo as "Stoner in grey Deftones hat", my college persona), but this is an excellent effort for a Barney with $800 bucks, a digital camera and some friends having fun and making a movie. Despite the fact that all of the actors were paid with either sex, drugs, alcohol, or all of the above, the cast is quite good, finding the right balance between the dramatic and the absurd, the funny and the poignant. All in all, I just hope Gavin gets around to somehow releasing this film. Chances are he won't, but here's to hoping.

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• A promising start...

  jacksonhalloway2004-07-20

  It's very cool that The Steaks finally has a page of its own. Their second movie, Expiration, has been making some waves (and for good reason) but not many people know about Gavin and company's first film, The Steaks. I was at the McGill premiere way back in 2000 and remember being impressed simply that these students, who were my age, had actually completed a feature length film. Gavin gave a speech while Ben struggled to make the projector work (I remember it feeling like a pretty tense moment). The lights went down and a packed theatre was treated to McGill's very first feature length film. My overall impressions were that it was pretty good. Nothing earth shattering, but given the budget and time constraints, it was impressive. It's a simple story: four college students at different places in their lives are picked to live in a Jeep and the last person remaining wins the Jeep. So begins a psychological mind game between the 4 contestants as the competition drags on for a lot longer than anyone expected. Basically this is a movie that lives or dies on the strength of the characters. We've got Brian, the film nut, obsessed with Christopher Walken (played by the director himself), Lauren, a shy awkward girl who gets teased relentlessly by Brian, Sarah, the blonde Australian hottie who is stuck in an unhappy relationship with her boyfriend, and Finn, the sensitive and mysterious guy who starts to fall for Sarah. The dialogue is great in some parts, painful in others. Some scenes seem to drag on too long for no apparent reason. The sound and picture quality of the film is a bit lacking but that makes sense given the limitations. However, cinematographer Ben Dally pulls off some very cool shots; one in particular that starts close on the jeep and slowly pulls back until the entire city comes into the frame and we are suddenly over the shoulder of another character watching from atop a mountain. That shot made my jaw drop! The acting all round is quite good and the film deftly balances comedy and some raw, emotional moments. The characters have great chemistry, no doubt as a result of filming scenes primarily inside a jeep. There are 'outside' characters as well and they provide an interesting perspective on what's happening inside the jeep. I'd also like to say that the ending genuinely surprised me but it also made perfect sense. So all in all, The Steaks is a good first film and paved the way for Expiration, which is leaps and bounds above the first film in every way possible. As a side note, Expiration is readily available on DVD whereas I just read that there exists only 40 copies of The Steaks. That is a shame! See Expiration because it is a much better film but hopefully one day someone will make The Steaks available on DVD so that people can see where this young film-making team began. It is the necessary first step in what seems like a very promising career for all involved.

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