Filmed on location in Winthrop, MA, as part of the 2013 Boston 48-Hour Film Project and winner of its Audience Award, Mallas, MA, is an entertaining and creative 8-minute short film about two bumbling con artists (Timothy Cox and Maria Natapov) who try to pull one over on a small, superstitious town by posing as paranormal investigators.

If you're unfamiliar with how a 48-Hour Film Project works, essentially a collective crew is tasked with writing, filming and delivering a finished film project in 48 hours. The team is assigned a genre, a character, a prop, and a line of dialogue that MUST appear in the film. Working within those fairly broad specifications, the collective is pretty much given free reign to go any direction they choose! Both 24-Hour and 48-Hour film projects have become quite popular around the country as they really do afford up-and-coming indie filmmakers and film industry folks the opportunity to hone their crafts and produce a finished project on an incredibly low budget. The finished projects are, of course, not quite "Hollywood" ready but they're often incredibly inventive and entertaining and you shouldn't be surprised if someone you see participating is going to be working on that Hollywood film you watch in the future.

As noted, this film picked up the 2013 Boston 48-Hour Film Project's Audience Award, most likely a solid recognition of the film's creativity, solid entertainment value and rock solid acting and technical achievements.

Timothy Cox and Maria Natapov have a terrific chemistry as the bumbling con-artists in question with Cox, a familiar face for The Independent Critic, clearly relishing the opportunity to play a spirited and energetic character. Kudos must be given as well to Uatchet Jin Juch and Nekhebet Kum Juch, who dually play the role of Sydney to tremendous effect. The film falls just a wee bit short in lasting impact due to an ending that feels abrupt and, one would guess, doesn't have quite the impact everyone was hoping. However, should Meehan and crew decide to take the film on the fest circuit it would only take a bit of tweaking to turn this into a solid choice for the indie and underground fest circuit.

The film is directed and co-written by Sean Meehan, and it's a pretty remarkable testimony to his talent that he can put together, with much assistance, such an entertaining flick in such a short amount of time. Rick Macomber's lensing and Cesar Suarez's original music warrant extra mention for nicely capturing the film's schlocky yet consistently fun aura.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic