Roundhouse Flicks
There is a known idea in the service industry that some customers are just the worst, and if they are, you’re potentially making things bad for your food/items/etc. I have been lucky enough to be able to afford movers when moving before, but I never considered being rude or demanding to them, even when I thought they were overpriced. But I suppose that’s a part of things I really can’t relate to, but everyone knows such people are out there.
Movers Ultimate comes from writer/director Ben Rood, who smartly does not also star in it, so we’re already off to a good start from the indie perspective (writer/director/actor is a very difficult line to walk). The movie stars Shawn Knox as Ryan and Andy J. Carlson as Chad, two friends and co-workers at a moving company naturally called ‘Movers Ultimate’. Ryan is more soft spoken and low key, far more worried about what other people might be thinking.
Chad, as would be expected from his name, is a crude, rude, unpersonable dude who is still quite loyal to his friends, if not his company. The movie starts things off with the two hoping to hit their high school reunion party in the evening, as Ryan starts obsessing over a series of texts with a girl he pined over back then, while Chad derides him for his worries yet also wants to hook up with someone if he can.
This is ostensibly a plotline in the movie, but it really disappears as we continue — Ryan gets a potential opportunity from his boss Denny (Chaney Morrow) for an assistant management job, but he knows that Chad is the one who really wants it (despite clearly being a worse ‘people person’). They are assigned a new big job that was requested for them specifically because of Yelp recommendations, so they can’t say no — but are worried the job is bigger than requested, which would leave them too busy to attend their reunion.
Sure enough, the two meet the family moving, led by nitpicking matriarch Meredith (Annaleese Poorman) who immediately wants way more than was initially agreed upon. Helping the two out is young pre-college dude Kip (Grant Kennedy-Lewis) who is really only hoping for some good workouts and a little bit of money before he heads to his college athletic scholarship, and two other interchangeable random guys that keep weirdly obsessing over Meredith’s daughter Susan (Sé Marie).
I have to admit, I was a little confused by the relationship between Susan and Meredith, as the two seem only about ten or fifteen years apart in age. I still can’t say I know for sure. There’s also definitely an adult, weird son hanging around the house too, leading to some humor about the disgusting nature of his room, and there’s a line about Meredith lying about being only 40 years old so maybe she’s meant to be much older?
The movie proceeds as the group goes through their job to move to another house, and slowly we begin to learn more about Meredith and her own weird damage. Susan and Ryan flirt with each other while Chad is simply a jerk to everyone — it’s a light, breezy time with a lot of amusing bits as we can roll our eyes at the classic overbearing customer moments.
I would say that Annaleese Poorman actually does the best work here, having to portray such an annoying character while still maintaining some complexity and depth to the character. It’s not a particularly deep movie, but sometimes an indie film is just a good old-fashioned breezy time, and this is a good example of that. There’s a bit of shaky cam at the start, but that thankfully goes away and we get a more intimate, interesting sort of movie that stands out from the indie crowd.
Movers Ultimate has a run time of 1 hour 31 minutes and is not rated.
Roundhouse Flicks
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