Indie Film Review: "Lonely Boy"

The short film "Lonely Boy" is was produced for the 4Reer 48 Hour Film Festival of this year from Rich Will and his imRichProductions. The film follows the misadventures of Reggie (played by Will himself) as he navigates through Downtown Atlanta, Georgia with no particular goal. He meets a couple of locals for whom he has different reactions to.

The first person Reggie meets is the Homeless Man (Clarence Hazelett) whom at first he slinks away from in disgust but when the Homeless Man asks for spare change Reggie plunders his pockets quickly just so he can be rid of the man. His second, and more interesting encounter, is with that of Lakisha (Ayana Jenkins) who is a flashy, fast talking hustler in her own rite who in a reversal wants nothing to do with Reggie, who sees her as a female Goddess that he would love to get closer to (and doesn't mind voicing it despite the negative reaction she gives to him). Needless to say, Reggie has about as likely a change of landing her as the Homeless Man did of getting change out of Reggie.

Because of the limitations that shooting a film in 48 hours can do to the final film, Will and Co. try their best to deliver on the bare bones premise. Despite the comical outcome of the final film, the production does suffer from poor production values especially in terms of camera as the iris seems to have been set on automatic and the lighting of the film tends to go in and out as does the poor sound recording which leaves some scenes inaudible. I can say this, if this is a student film or a first time film-maker than these can be somewhat forgiven (as film-makers we've all been there with some of our first productions) and the film-makers can be praised for actually finishing a film in 48 hours that has an actual story that you can follow. The mediocre acting can also be forgiven as it does add a slight comedic charm to the student-first time film-maker dramedy.

A definite highlight to the film is the music from Blessed Wun which adds tremendously to the enjoyment of the whimsical short film.

You can view the film in its entirety at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y631augJuHg&feature=channel_video_title