QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM LOCARNO

Marketed as “a collection of short stories showcasing the wide variety of evil behaviour human beings are capable of” and allegedly “based on real stories”, this British film showcases countless characters and their trivial, vaguely reprehensible actions. An elderly couple fight an infestation of creepy crawlers, while also constantly bickering and challenging each other’s marital abilities. Strangers laugh at their mobile phone on public transport, displaying contempt towards other passengers. Young people smoke weed, and play videogames, chatter, and loiter. A Chinese man splits his time between his family and his laundrette, where he touches a client inappropriately. And so on. The stories are interspersed, and often barely discernible.

These are common people we’ve all met and wish we hadn’t. They are petty, selfish, arrogant and inconsiderate, yet highly relatable. A morbid collection of repulsive human beings, like the title suggests, or a patchwork of nasty events. Some sort of Dog Days (Ulrich Seidl, 2001) meets American Beauty (Sam Mends, 1999), this time on British soil. Sadly, British director Richard Hunter never reaches the same heights as the Austrian and the American movies. The banal and the disgusting can be fascinating. And good cinema has the power to turn the ordinary into extraordinary. Sadly, Foul Evil Deeds is just gratuitous and lame.

Pearls of knowledge filled with sexual innuendo and provocations such as “imagine a world where every man has exactly the same penis” and “sorry for wanting to have sex with my wife” seek to inject some wit into this 108-minute film. The story is dotted with blank screens and pregnant pauses that serve no purpose. These devices don’t accentuate anything: there is no sense of anticipation, suspense, or humour. The outcome is just cold and boring.

The low-budget aesthetic and middle-of-the-road cinematography could be justified by casualness of interactions. It’s almost as if these non-exemplary citizens were captured by mobile phone or CCTV. It doesn’t work. But when combined with wooden acting and contrived lines, this cinematographic choices are just uninspiring. Some of the conversations have the spontaneity of your local Avon sales rep. A cat eulogy is designed to evoke laughter, but instead it’s just awkward. Plus, except for one or two developments, these characters fail to be genuinely “evil”. Nothing is distinctly shocking. You will find yourself cringing, just not at the behaviour of the characters. It’s the unimaginative narrative that’s embarrassing.

Foul Evil Deeds shows in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente of the 77th Locarno Film Festival.