I mean this next statement in the best possible way...You will NOT see "W: The Movie" in a multiplex any time soon.

Usually, when I make such a statement it's more a testimony to the film's obvious low-budget production quality.

That's not the issue here with "W: The Movie."

The issue with "W: The Movie" is quite simple...this is one seriously messed up flick and, again, I mean that in the best possible way.

"W: The Movie" is NOT, by an stretch of the imagination, the film by Oliver Stone. Compared to this flick, Stone's film is a kid glove approach to a certain former president not so affectionately known as "W."

"W: The Movie," on the other hand, is an apocalyptic, psychotic, pop skull of a flick about the nightmarish world that we birthed during the eight year reign of George W. Bush and his army of clones.

I wish I could describe "W: The Movie" for you.

I simply can't.

What I can say is that "W: The Movie" is an awesome, frightening, enlightening, insightful, colorful, trippy, entertaining, educational and experimental film that will challenge you in ways you've never been challenged while watching a film.

"W: The Movie" centers on a delightful character called Blue Mahler (Alfred Eaker), a man who is obsessed with exposing the evil tyranny of "W" while, perhaps, edging towards tyranny himself as his world and his family fall apart.

Is it possible to confront evil without becoming evil?

Interspersed throughout the film are a variety of characters who play out in ways dramatic and eerie, haunting and humorous.  There's Jezebel (PinkFreud), Samson (Ross St. Just), a Red Neck Tooth Fairy (Justin Barnes), a Stigmatic Frog Grave Digger (Wendy Collin Sorin), Saddam Hussein (Gary Pierce), Uncle Sama Ben Llama (Brother Brown), the Dirty Pope (Richard Pope) and even the Planet Pluto (Michael Basinski).

These characters are tied together by stories and songs, vignettes and mini-music videos. These characters are tied together by monologues that vacillate between dramatic readings and stand-up routines.

These characters? Oh my. These characters.

The weirdest thing of all, though, is that writer/director/producer/star Alfred Eaker makes it all work in ways that are wild and wonderful, weird and whacked out. "W: The Movie" is as much performance art, not surprising given Eaker's background in the art form, and experimental cinema. Despite, or perhaps because of, having an obviously modest production budget, Eaker has flung his production design far out into the cinematic universe with make-up and costuming, set design and cinematography that paint broad and colorful strokes of cinematic and political imagery. "W: The Movie" is destined to be the kind of film that is interpreted, re-interpreted and over-analyzed with Eaker's abundance of psychedelic goings on.

Never have I felt the desire to call such a strange and mind-altering film a thing of true beauty, but "W: The Movie" is truly a beautiful film that will envelope your senses, stimulate your mind and question your beliefs.

"W: The Movie" has its official premiere at the New York International Film Festival on March 20, 2009 at 10pm. 

© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic