If you've been reading my reviews for any length of time, then you're likely already aware that I have a fondness for the indie Australian scene in cinema that tends to be marked by unique, thought-provoking and authentically written stories.

So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that I agreed to review Shooting Goldman, an 80-minute indie flick directed by Tony Prescott and written by James Raue that, at the time of submission, had only been screened for family and friends yet had already snagged fest selections at New York Audience Now and at least one other soon to be announced.

Shooting Goldman centers around, you guessed it, Mike Goldman, a real life Australian actor known for his work on Big Brother: Australia, Big Brother Uncut, and Friday Night Games. Here, the film kicks off as a documentary about Goldman that follows the trajectory of your usual hoax documentary from his childhood to his celebrity days to his current life as an actor who is so known as a reality actor that no one will give him his desired shot at truly dramatic work. As his effort to get back into the spotlight grows, Mike becomes increasingly suspicious that he already is back in the spotlight. He becomes increasingly delusional, unsure of what's real and what's not - to make matters worse, Mike's life begins going extraordinarily well.

Why?

What really makes Shooting Goldman such an entertaining film is, in fact, the performance of Mike Goldman himself, who manages to convince as both the reality actor he's always been and the insightful, emotionally resonant actor he wants to become. Director Tony Prescott does a terrific job of keeping everything flowing in such a way that you're never 100% sure what's going on and, indeed, by film's end it's hard to stop watching without having that aching feeling that you've been a little  bit had yourself.

The film also features an appearance by Yasmin Kassim, who will be familiar to those who've seen Celebrity Apprentice Australia from her 2012 appearance on the show.

Shooting Goldman is a creative endeavor, a film that both entertains and makes you think about the world of reality television and the fact that what you think is real is often not yet, adversely, what you assume may not be really may very well be.

Does that confuse you?

Good. That's the perfect place to be when you sit down to watch Shooting Goldman.

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic