Reviewed by Andres De La Hoz

Then again, Black & White was directed by Dave Smith, who is no Kubrick. i'm tellin' ya all this stuff 'cos people might say i review unfairly 'cos i don't like 'em or somethin'. To write about Toll Free is to write about what can only be considered a failed opportunity, for the end product to the combination of Jeremy Dick on screenplay duties and Santiago Miglionico directing the script in question is an quickly forgettable, irrelevant little movie that won't be remembered too far along the timeline of 3dmm history. Or no Brett Rattner, for that matter. Now that we've got that idiotic briefing out of the way, let's go into what you want: the review. i didn't really have anything to guide me for this 'cos the last movie i remember by any of these 2 is black & white and that kinda sucked. I had no idea what Santiago Miglionico's directing style was, little knowledge of the movie's plot, and little idea of whether this was even a short or an actual movie.

Of course, this is simply a scam designed to trick the gullible. This is shown through the actual charity advertisement, as well as the making of it and the complete hypocrisy of those involved. that scene was pretty funny 'cos of the guy 'cos he was all like hypocritical and stuff. That is, of course, my fault. The movie's title refers to silly commercials or infomercials, in this case one about "adopting" a child by donating money every day. I thought the scene was great, and it seemed to set up the movie to be a funny movie. After that great scene, everything goes down the drain. I mean, it has to be, right? It seemed to have it all. I got my hopes up. Great directing, great writing, and an actual point to make: A narrative concerning a subdeconstructivist spin on neosocial capitalism. After years of watching 3dmm movies, I should know better than to actually expect good things about them.

I mean, that's what it begins as. In fact, one of our strapping young heroes seems interested in donating money, until he's argued out of it by the other guy (since no one in this movie is an actual character, we'll just call him Mr. Cynical, and the other one Mr. Nobility). In a coherent, normal movie, you'd expect them to go to the company and demand an answer, or some crazy stuff to happen. There is a lack of deappropriative suborder with regards to the subject's essentiality and phenomenology. After the movie ended, I just scratched my head and wondered just what the fuck had happened here. Now, they don't actually know this money is being stolen. In fact, Mr. Nobility only decides to not donate because his friend tells him not to using some lame arguments. i saw it later and it was like the same thing. The script fails to present any sort of point with anything that I'd call "coherence". See, the movie is about how bad these selfish, moneygrubbing companies are. So we've got Mr. Cynical and Mr. Nobility, who both find the idea of a company stealing the public's money (a point which is unsubtly repeated more than once) sickening. In essence, this is a deconstruction on the the role of social identity and its modification of moral values. So they have reservations about this company, and decide to pay it a visit. There is a simple flaw that prevents Toll Free from being good: the movie is all over the place. But no. The wonder duo break into the company, brutally execute hard-working security people who have nothing to do with the charity scam, execute one of the people involved (so that the whole thing isn't totally fucking senseless), and grab the one in the infomercial. those guys are some mean motherfuckers, killin' all those people. Then, they make the guy who was in the infomercial confess, and he speaks about his plan and we're treated to a "oh my, i'm evil and greedy" speech. The lack of cohesion comes from both sides: the script and the directing. To not bore the proceedings more with senseless executions, the children who participate in the commercial (and are starving) confuse the guy for a cute hamburger (because they're hungry) and devour him. And then our heroes keep the money they stole instead of giving it to charity. It fails to make any sort of sense whatsoever. This reversal of neotraditional sociocultural paradigms of morality in the subjects could be interpreted as the collapse of judeocapitalist theory.

Seriously guys. I'm not joking. That's the plot of the fucking movie. You can try and argue all you want, but this is one shitfucking shitfuck of a script. What in the living hell was the point of this ? According to the writer, the point of the movie was to show how bad the people that make these infomercials are. Well, the point was conveyed, but in just about the worst fucking way possible. Seriously. The point is that infomercial people are evil. So you're going to show this point by having them be brutally assassinated by coldblooded, retarded, uncaring morons?!? What the hell? I mean, you've got your infomercial guys, which are ripping people off and keeping some kids hungry, and you've got our lovely heroes, who brutally murder security guards (and a lot of them, since this company has more guns in it than Iraq). What's the point here? That humanity is inherently evil and incoherent, and that nobility and decency are not real? the script makes no fucking sense, 'cos it doesn't give a flying fuck about clearing all this shit up. the motivations of those fucking asshole vigilantes could all be part of a satire of movies, maybe a joke played by jeremy. maybe he's fuckin' with us because he wants to show how sometimes morality's contradictory and shit. It doesn't read like a satire, it doesn't read like a comedy, it doesn't read like an action movie, it doesn't read like anything expect a clusterfuck of strange (and possibly undeveloped) ideas. 'Cos that's what I'm getting here. I really, really, really don't see what the purpose was. It you wanted to make a movie about how Nazis are bad, would you have them be brutally raped by a satanic pederast in order to show how bad they are? Am I supposed to root for these murderers? Is contextualization of the subject related to the infomercial antagonists, or on the paradoxical moral neorelativism of the protagonists? it's kinda weird 'cus it doesn't feel like a serious drama movie. i don't like those. i don't like to think. The poststructural analysis of paradoxical reality against the cultural conception of what film constitutes could be a dialectic exercise in exhibiting the absurdity of story conventions. If this is the case, the script fails in doing so. i didn't really get it, i mean it was like a bunch of fucking scenes that didn't make sense and i was like "damn, this movie doesn't make sense at all".

Some scenes seem taken out of a comedy. Some scenes seem like they could be seamlessly inserted into any PAM. Some seem like the movie is tongue-in-cheek. Some seem like the movie is dead serious. The movie has a great look, with very polished scenes, and a very bright, active palette. Santiago is very competent in animation. The action scenes were well-directed, though a little bit derivative of other works. Take one of the last scenes, for example. The kids see a man like he's a hamburger, so they eat him. So we have dramatic, tense music, screeching and gore sound effects, and a cute little hamburger with nice little eyes. The problem with the directing is that, just like with the script, it doesn't make much sense. This lack of order in the script isn't exactly helped by the directing. like, for example, when the movie starts it's all light and funny and we're thinking "hmm, it's a comedy movie, pretty cool", but then the next scene has all dramatic music and it's like "well, what the hell, maybe it turns into a kinda drama/comedy thing" and then it keeps going and now it's metallica and people start shooting the shit out of each other and we're like "fuck yeah, it's an action movie, fucking awesome" and then it kinda turns silly with the dialogue and stuff and i'm confused. Since it was directed by both Jeremy and Santiago (from what I understand), the different visions they might have for the movie could have interfered. And it's kinda depressing, because the movie had the potential to be great, but it's mediocre. As I said, the movie is all over the place, and it is therefore frustrating. It's kinda hard to criticize a movie like this for either direction or script, because to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure just where the flaw originated and whether or not the other side's own shortcomings failed to turn out the fire. In a sense, Miglionico's work promotes a postsituationist pragmatism reminiscent of deconstructivist analysis of pointless action films and their cultural influence. Yet, when analyzing the content of this work, one is faced with the choice of accepting either postsituationist pragmatism or a poststructural analysis of paradoxical reality in Dick's script. The directing fails to be cohesive. It's just frustrating. what the hell, that doesn't make any sense man. It's as frustrating as reading this review.

2/5

(Note from Aaron: The Postmodernism Generator can be found at http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern)