Brett Mauser is back again with Pro Bono 2: Maltese Falcon. After the initial adventures of skeleton detective Frank Bohner (not pronounced “boner,” mind you) in Pro Bono, the smart-talking, soft-tissue-challenged detective is back with his take on The Maltese Falcon. The film kicks off as any good noir-style detective story should: a salty, burned-out gumshoe in an office visited by a beautiful dame who needs him to take her case. But, again, Bohner is a skeleton (a puppet skeleton). I’m not sure why.
The rest of the film goes pretty much as you think it will, with the script following loosely along the narrative lines of the 1941 Huston/Bogart film The Maltese Falcon. Mauser went back to the source, adapting the long-winded Dashiell Hammett novel (now in the public domain) to fit in an indie film format. There are amusing anachronistic references to modern niceties like online newspapers. There’s a running joke with Bohner never being able to pronounce “Maltese Falcon.”
The micro-budget results in a production that is filmed in private homes and public streets, with so-so performances, but the approach is light-hearted and goofy enough to be entertaining. The puppeteering and voice acting that bring the skeleton to life are the highlight. There’s something about being stared down by a blank skull that is just always funny. Mauser uses soft, downbeat jazz music of the noir era effectively.
“… the smart-talking soft-tissue-challenged detective is back …”
The good news is that Pro Bono 2: Maltese Falcon is available to watch for free on YouTube on the Not So Sane Entertainment channel. There’s little to invest except time, and you’ll enjoy the gags enough to spend it.
One curiosity is that Mauser advertises his website and his films as “non-woke.” It’s “Not So Sane Entertainment, the home of non-woke films.” That’s an interesting promotional position, aimed at a specific demographic, but a glance through the films listed doesn’t show anything especially egregious. They lack diversity, to be sure, and for the Pro Bono films, yes, Bohner’s treatment of women is sexist and dismissive, but that’s in keeping with the old film noir tropes. Those detectives were all jerks when it came to women. Mauser’s material is crass, but that’s about it. If the films are supposed to be a poke in the eye of wokeness (and I can say this because I’m woke AF), then they miss the mark. A similarly interesting take on the noir genre is the new film Love Loaded from Jan Miller Corran, which includes gay couples as part of the tapestry of crime, betrayal, and murder.
Pro Bono 2: Maltese Falcon is diverting and mildly entertaining, but not as good as the first Pro Bono, as the schtick isn’t fleshed out enough (heh), particularly at a 100-minute runtime. It just isn’t as humerus as the first one (forgive me, I exhausted most of my bone jokes in the first review). It reminds us that just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Still, it’s worth your time to watch them as a double feature, and certainly adds novelty to the genre.
Learn more at the official Pro Bono 2: Maltese Falcon website.
"…isn’t as 'humerus' as the first film"
