Archie’s Final Project (2009)

Number Rolled: 100

Movie Name/Year: Archie’s Final Project (2009)

Genre: Comedy

Length: 110 minutes

Rating: NR

Director: David Lee Miller

Writer: Eric J. Adams, David Lee Miller, Jordan J. Miller, Gabriel Sunday

Actors: David Carradine, Mariel Hemingway, Brooke Nevin, Nora Dunn, Michael WelchZachary Ray Sherman, Vanessa Lengies, Gabriel Sunday, Tony Hale, Joe Mantegna, Sandy Martin, Tim Halligan, Steven Anthony Lawrence, Stephen Sowan

This movie is about a teenage film-geek. He’s obsessed with David Carradine and his mistaken interpretation of the man’s films leads him to decide to film his own suicide for his film class final project. He goes along a road that allows him to film interviews with people in his school and life, capturing their reactions to this shocking news.

It’s an interesting concept, and because the plot is so different from anything I’ve seen before, I wasn’t sure what I would be getting myself into. I’d never heard of the movie before, never seen a trailer, didn’t care about any of the actors or other people known to be involved; I added it to my instant queue solely on the description of the plot. After spending nearly a whopping two hours watching this movie, I’m still glad that I added it.

They say it’s a comedy. I wouldn’t call it that. I mean, even the little blurbed plotline will make you question that. However, I couldn’t even begin to choose a genre for “Archie’s Final Project.” It was completely different. It had aspects of drama, aspects of mockumentary, aspects of comedy and thriller and romance. This movie created a brand new genre that needs a brand new name that I couldn’t even begin to come up with. So let’s just leave it as ‘comedy’ for now, and pretend we all agree.

I felt like I was watching an acid trip that was so wrong that it started to make sense. If you were to take the film style of the Monty Python series, the film style of “Requiem for a Dream” and mixed it with the feel of “SLC Punk,” you’d come pretty close to what you get here.

It was completely original, with absolutely amazing acting. The script was ridiculous (in the best sense) and the film style blew my mind. Not only that, but the storyline drilled into me with such force that I feel like this movie has changed a part of me. When I think back to “Archie’s Final Project” I will note this movie as an inspiration to what should be and who I want to be.

It has undoubtedly become my favorite movie of all time.

Overall Opinion – 5/5