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Indie flix
By Times staff
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 21, 2002
Look back in laughter
The Independent (R) (85 min.) -- Morty Fineman didn't create the concept of sequels, but it was his idea to add Roman numerals to movie titles. You never had a chance to see the first one: World War III II. Fineman's also the artist who made Twelve Angry Men and a Baby and Brothers Divided, a story of conjoined twins with opposing views of the Vietnam War. You didn't see those "classics," either.
That's because Fineman and his oeuvre are completely and often hilariously fictional, concocted by director and co-writer Stephen Kessler for the mockumentary The Independent. Anyone who ever stayed awake for the late, late, late show on TV or the bottom -- I mean bottom -- half of a drive-in movie bill should enjoy this affectionate tribute to cinematic schlock.
Jerry Stiller (sitcom star, father of Ben) continues his late career bloom with an adorably crass performance as Fineman, creator of 427 movies that time and good taste forgot. But a pseudo-documentary team didn't. The Independent focuses on production of Fineman's latest blend of jiggle and social commentary, Ms. Kevorkian, while recalling a career in shambles since his overly ambitious The Whole History of America tanked expensively.
Kessler (National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation) has a ball recreating snippets of Fineman's greatest misses, interspersed with glowing comments from such game real-life artists as Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Corman, the B-movie maestro Fineman closely resembles. Sometimes just mentioning an idea Fineman hatched is enough to earn big laughs.
But this isn't merely ridicule. The Independent celebrates the Fineman in every cheap artist, a blindly optimistic notion that junk has a higher purpose. Fineman's too feisty to be pathetic, laying shame on the mealy-mouthed egos of the Costners and Camerons of studio filmmaking. Watching him proudly discuss his best work, an Army hygiene film drastically influenced by Ingmar Bergman, is more inspiring than any Oscar acceptance speech.
The movie adds some distracting tension between Fineman and his estranged daughter (Janeane Garofalo), plus a dead-end detour to a small community hosting a film festival because that's the cool thing to do and Fineman's the only filmmaker desperate enough to attend. Some gags fall flat and many are too "inside" for average moviegoers, but there's always another coming in the next breath to try again.
The Independent recalls the grainy, skit-framed humor of The Groove Tube rather than the bogus flow of This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman. But it shares the show-biz delusions of those superior mockumentaries and adds a ruthless determination to find a laugh somewhere, anywhere -- even in the end credits, which list titles of all 427 Fineman epics. Kessler never knows when to quit, just like Fineman, and our aching jaws can thank him for that. B+
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