In a world where the toilet paper budget on a studio flick can exceed the full budget of your standard indie flick, there's something awesome when an ultra-low budget film crosses my desk. This has happened more than once with writer/director Pat Bradley, back once again with the 26-minute short dark comedy Method Man. With a reported budget of $1,200 and a production crew of exactly one person (Bradley), Method Man may not completely blow you away but it's a fun little flick with solid performances from Jeff Clark Jr. as Vincent and Jordan Chin as Erica. 

The film centers around an actor, Vincent, who has been typecast and is struggling to break out of the familiar and into something entirely different. Entrenching himself in a character, Vincent starts to blur the line between reality and acting. 

Method Man has already picked up a handful of awards on the microcinema scene and its dark humor will likely click with those who dig the microcinema scene and understand that it means the film will be much more about raw talent than razzle-dazzle. 

I wanted to enjoy Method Man an awful lot more than I did, though the film definitely picks up steam over the course of its 26-minute running time and once it taps into the more dramatic elements of Bradley's storytelling. You've seen films like Method Man before that tap into such a dark space that the humor comes mostly out of our own lack of comfort and the increasingly uncomfortable places in which we find our characters. 

Method Man continues on the indie fest circuit and should find Bradley continuing to make a name for himself within the world of microcinema. With multiple other film projects on the horizon, I'll be anxious to see what comes from Bradley next. 

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic