Director:Jean-Baptiste Andrea
In a role that couldn’t be further away from his Friends character Ross, actor David Schwimmer stars in this dark crime comedy about inept blackmailers who decide to try for one big score wherein anything and everything goes horribly, violently wrong. With his police officer wife (Natascha McElhone) bringing home the bulk of the family income, struggling writer Charlie Wood (Schwimmer) reluctantly takes a job at a computer technology call center to help provide for his wife and daughter. After being fired on his first day, he is approached by coworker Gus (Simon Pegg) to blackmail Reverend Smalls, an avid user of adult websites with membership to some especially unsavory online addresses. They team up with former beauty queen Josie (Alice Eve) after she overhears the two planning their scheme in a bar, which most audience members agree should be the first sign that they’re not quite cut out for a life of crime. After a quirky and surprisingly humorous opening, everything disintegrates into a shocking and sometimes disturbing fashion. Set in Big Falls, Oregon, writers Billy Asher and Jean-Baptiste Andrea (who also directs) will attract fans of the indie crime genre looking for something different however the film’s maddeningly vague ending makes viewers question the fate of the main character in a way that lacks solid resolution. Overall, Big Nothing is far more entertaining than one would expect and a film that definitely shines a whole new light on the talent of Schwimmer who had previously been typecast as Ross.
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