Seventeen minutes feels like an eternity while watching “Ant.” You keep glancing at the clock and asking yourself, “How long has this been on? Ten minutes? Is something going to happen?” The answer is, “No. Nothing will happen and little will make sense.” To quote Public Enemy, “Consider yourself warned.”
Bertrand (Silas Weir Mitchell) has a girlfriend or wife (Maria Cina) who has some kind of phobia about leaving their apartment. They need food. Bertrand takes subway and sees a domestic violence dispute. Bertrand steals food and attacks the grocery store clerk (Christian Hastings) with a loaf of bread. Bertrand makes it home sans food (he dropped it right outside the store) and finds his significant other in bed with the clerk. Bertrand watches some ants on television. That’s the movie, only it sounds more exciting in print. There’s no spoilers because there’s nothing to give away. Sure, the metaphor is so obvious it hurts, but come on. This is really seventeen minutes of nothing.
Instead of watching “Ant,” I could’ve been reading the latest issue of “Hellblazer” or “Alias.” I’ll be kicking myself for that later because this is seventeen minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Next time I see the names Michael Faella and Iain Kennedy (the director and writer, respectively), I’ll take that as a warning sign. You got these seventeen minutes, dogs! You’ll get no others!
What a lovely, thoughtful review from just a charming bunch of folks. I haven’t read this one in a while, but stumbled on it today and recall it fondly. The film screened at the first Tribeca Film Festival and at Clermont-Ferrand, and got picked up for distribution by Apollo Films. It might not be for everyone, but this review seemed so pointedly nasty, that I couldn’t help but respond: Hey Film Threat guy, to quote Dafoe’s character Eric Masters in “To Live and Die in LA,” “You’re taste is in your a*s.”