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TSM Movie Review: The Gosh Darned Mortgage
Posted by Jason Castleman on Aug 8, 2003, 13:47
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The Gosh Darned Mortgage
2001
Directed by Pamela Sutch
Written by Jack Dastardly
Starring: Pamela Sutch, Tina Krause, Debbie D, Stephen McKay, Patrick M. O'Connor and Michael Grieco
Review by Jason Castleman
This review is for a very, very small movie sent to me to get reviewed a while back. When you get micro-budget movies like this, there are only a few things that you expect will happen:
1. The movie will overcome it's size limitations and turn out to be pretty good.
2. The movie will not overcome it's size limitations and be the most amateurish piece of crap ever.
3. The movie will not overcome it's size limitations but turn out to be so bad that it IS good.
There is one thing that I never expected to happen with movies that are given to us for review. I never expected one to become one of the most enjoyable movies I've ever seen....but it just happened. Siren Tales' The Gosh Darned Mortgage is the funniest movie I've seen in a long, long time. I knew what it was going into it. I knew it had the possibility of being funny. I knew it was written in the style of 1920's era damsel-in-distress melodramas. I knew how much I love the silent movies and that style of comedy. I knew the movie had Tina Krause in it who I find to be extremely under-rated and deserves to start getting a chance at some bigger roles. I knew the pictures on the site looked extremely promising. But I never had a clue that all of this would come together so perfectly. Following a slow opening 5 minutes or so, the movie takes off and is non-stop laughs for an hour. I've watched it twice this week and I'll probably watch it again, soon.
The movie opens with the heroine, Constance, being hassled by evil villain Solomon Snakebite to pay her gosh darned mortgage. Seeing as how she doesn't have the money to pay the gosh darned mortgage, Snakebite demands that she marry him. She can't marry him of course, her heart belongs to another. Soon after Snakebite leaves the house, Constance receives word that she has just inherited 500 thousand dollars. She believes her money problems to be over, but....the dastardly scoundrel Snakebite has overheard her good news and plots to get that money for himself. So he forges a document to put the 500 grand in his name and then, along with a henchman, come up with plot after plot to eliminate Constance. (Ties her to a chair and sets a big black box with the letters TNT painted on it under her, ties her to a saw, ties her to train tracks.) Next thing you know a Mountie named Rock Manly, the love of Constance's life, shows up to save the day.
Like I said, the opening minutes are kinda blah and boring. It's not very funny at all and it made me kinda worried. But these few minutes are really essential because they set up the movie. Not just the story itself but it's used to get you used to the movie's style and dialogue. At first you think "where the hell did they get this crappy dialogue," a couple of minutes later it's "where the hell did they get this kick ass dialogue?" Like I said, it's written in the style of a '20's melodrama, so all the dialogue sounds like it's from that era. It's very old school. It takes a little getting used to, but once you do, you're gonna hear some of the funniest lines ever.
Another reason for the pickup and why this movie is so damn good is the supporting cast. Sutch and McKay are fine as the main hero and villain, but their parts are more straight forward than everybody else's. It's the other characters like Rock Manly who provide the bulk of the comedy. Casting Patrick M. O'Connor as Rock Manly is just about as perfect as any big time role you could imagine. The entire cast is perfect really. I can't imagine that there are a lot of actors out there that could pull off these roles like these people did. O'Connor just looks and acts exactly like those old dopey Mounties that you see in the old movies and old cartoons. He's down right perfect. Debbie D shows up as the busty hotel bellgirl and is hysterical as well. I don't know if I understood what the hell she was supposed to be doing a lot of times (she starts bellydancing out of the blue at one point), but it was funny. Tina Krause shows up towards the end of the movie as Sinestra, Snakebite's sister, and tries to seduce Manly. (He passes her up, which may be the most far-fetched thing in any movie ever.) Krause actually shows a great deal of comedy ability in this role which was kinda surprising. Then there is Snakebite's henchman played by Michael Grieco. I have no idea where they found this guy but it is the greatest casting choice in the history of motion pictures. Every single sound that came from this man's mouth was the funniest damn thing ever. The man is a comedic goldmine. There is no doubt in my mind that I would NOT love this movie as much as I do without him in it. I would still like it, but not this much. He never did one thing in this movie that made me smile or chuckle. EVERY SINGLE THING made me laugh out loud! This guy is my hero now. This guy needs a weekly television show. I'd never miss it. God, he was funny.
I can't even come up with any complaints about the movie itself. There were maybe 2 or 3 moments where I thought the editing was off a bit. Like a scene seemed to linger for a couple of seconds too long. That's it. I can find something to complain about in every movie I've ever seen but in THIS movie, all I can find to complain about is maybe 5 seconds of extra video. The movie is only 65 minutes long so I can't even complain about it being too long! Not too short either. It's perfect! Dammit, I want to complain about something. Even the girl-tied-to-the-train-track scene was good. I expected that to be pretty sloppy and poorly done. I mean, how can you do a train scene with no budget? But that scene is great too and even heart stopping exciting. I was really sitting here like, "Damn, she really needs to get off those tracks!" Even the fight scenes are put together brilliantly. The whole damn thing was just made about as close to perfect as one can get, budget or no budget.
If you've never listened to a word I've said in any other review, listen to this. This movie is great. It's everything a movie should be. It's fun, fresh, entertaining, exciting and it contains gratuitous nudity. I highly recommend that you go to Siren Tales website and get this movie right away.
Link: Siren Tales
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