NOW ON PRIME VIDEO! In Lance Lucero’s Hunting for Fish, a botched jewel-store setup turns into a tangled manhunt when a good-looking, conniving thief walks away with the diamonds. What we’re left with is a silly, screwball comedy where nobody comes out of it unscathed.
The story begins after the heist has already gone sideways, and our heroes find themselves in a van being transported to prison: Wilson Fish (Gary Sirchia), Sunshine Sikkink (Renee Deemer), and Tanker Smeat (Mark Digiglia). Unbeknownst to Sunshine and Tanker, Wilson has the diamonds they stole and decides to double-cross his cohorts, keeping the money for himself. In fact, he is also planning to double-cross Mr. Spicer (Carl Paul Ezold, Jr.), even asking him if he knows a good fence.
From there, the film shifts back to how this mess started. Sunshine, a former insurance fraud investigator turned thief, and her black-market partner, Tanker, are hired by Spicer to rob his own jewelry store so he can cash in on the insurance claim. Before the plan can play out, Spicer quietly brings in Wilson Fish, an elusive con man and thief, thinking he can help guarantee the score. Instead, Wilson plays everyone against each other, waiting for the right moment to betray the crew and make off with the diamonds himself.
Once Wilson is on the run, he holes up at the Castle Inn and changes his appearance by whatever means are available. Sunshine and Tanker want their cut, Spicer wants his diamonds, and the trail keeps tightening around Wilson as every double-cross leads to another problem. As they say, the chase is on.
“The story begins after the heist has already gone sideways, and our heroes find themselves in a van being transported to prison…”
Hunting for Fish takes us all the way back to 1997 and delivers us a film that was definitely shot in 1997. For the nostalgic crowd, it is probably one of the last shot-on-film indie comedies before the slow move to digital.
With the adventures of Wilson Fish, silliness is on tap. Gary Sirchia plays Wilson Fish as a more psychotic version of Face from The A-Team—good-looking and street-smart, while letting his greed and ambition foil even his own plans. Renee Deemer plays the hot insurance investigator willing to go to extreme measures to break the glass ceiling. Then there’s a pair of buffoons running a fence/mortuary just to kick the silly to eleven.
I was going to say that if you’re more into the so-called sophisticated comedies of today, Hunting for Fish is a knee-slapping throwback to a time when comedies did not care who they offended and were proudly surface-level. In the end, a good time is to be had by all.
As an indie film, it has that sheer will to take whatever is available and stitch it together into a good-looking movie. A few drone shots might have been nice, but A+ on guerrilla-style filmmaking here.
By the time the dust settles, Lance Lucero’s Hunting for Fish leaves behind the kind of scrappy, anything-goes energy that old-school indie filmmaking used to wear like a badge of honor.
"…a knee-slapping throwback to a time when comedies did not care who they offended..."
