Roman

Genre - Drama/Thriller

Year Released - 2006

Running Time - 92 minutes

Directed by Angela Bettis (her Directorial Debut)

Written by Lucky McKee (who also wrote May as well as Sick Girl)

Cast Includes:

Lucky McKee (who directed May and Sick Girl)

Kristen Bell

Nectar Rose

Rating : 3 Skulls

Plot Summary:

Roman is a lonely guy who just wants a little love and happiness - and an escape from his day-to-day existence as a factory welder.

When his obsession with a pretty neighbor ends in murder, Roman struggles to hide his deed and pick up the pieces of his life.

But now someone else has their eye on Roman and he's about to discover what obsession really means.

Review:

When I first saw May, back in 2003, I immediately fell in love with both Angela Bettis and Lucky McKee (both of whom are on my "would like to meet someday" list)

Lucky McKee is the writer & director of May and Angela Bettis played the lead role. (for those of you who have never seen May, you may know Angela from Tobe Hooper's 2003 Re-make of The Toolbox Murders)

For those of you not familiar with Lucky McKee, he basically solidified himself as a true Master of Horror with his 1st Season episode (of MoH) Sick Girl (again, starring Angela Bettis)

In Roman, Angela Bettis and Lucky McKee switch roles - Angela has become the Director and Lucky the Lead Role.

The 1st thing that I thought of when I started watching this movie was that Lucky McKee must be one tall dude! [either that or both Kristen Bell & Nectar Rose are really short] :-)
Lucky did okay playing Roman - he is one of those directors who are far superior behind the camera (i.e. Quentin Tarantino) than in front of one.

I am not really familiar with Kristen Bell (I know that she plays the lead role of Sarah in Forgetting Sarah Marshall - which is in my Netflix Queue - and that she is in the American Re-make of Kairo (aka Pulse) which I have not seen because I am pretty sure that it will be a clunker like almost every other American/Japanese Re-make. Based on Roman though, I thought that she did quite well.

Nectar Rose [her parents must have been hippies] on the other hand, in my opinion, stole this movie! During the movie it kept bothering me that she looked so familiar, so I looked her up on http://www.imdb.com/ to find out that she was an uncredited stripper in Independence Day and was also uncredited as Marilyn Monroe in L.A.Confidential. Well, she has come a long way from her uncredited days! In Roman, Nectar plays a crazy chick obsessed with death (Saturdays are for Chili Dogs in the Cemetery!) Her character's obsession reminded me a little bit of Cameron Diaz's character in Vanilla Sky - far out there!!

For those of you who are already Lucky McKee fans, you will be pleased to see that both Mike (Lucky's real-life father) and Jesse Hlubik (both of whom were in May and Sick Girl) return as Roman's fellow co-workers at the welding factory. Another co-worker was Director Chris Siverston (who directed the awful I Know Who Killed Me and then redeemed himself by directing Jack Ketchum's The Lost.

Ben Boyer (who was the Composer on Sick Girl) played Russ, Roman's Landlord, who watches porn - in surround sound - 24/7! Pretty Funny! :-) There is also a deleted scene with James Duvall (who was also in May, as well as Donnie Darko and also The Doom Generation)

All in all, if you are a fan of Lucky McKee's, I think that you will enjoy this movie. It was not as good as May, though it was a perfect directorial debut for Angela Bettis. If you are not a fan of Lucky's, but you like your dramas dark, then you too may enjoy this film. . .

[I am awaiting a friend's reply on how to add Trailers to my Blog. . .] :-)

Jason