You will hold a grudge against yourself for the rest of your life if you don’t catch the dynamite indie drama Resentment, written and directed by Noel Millman. David (Patch Darragh) sits with a beer in a bar in Brooklyn that is about to open. He is glowering into his phone, from which there are emitting the sounds of a woman (Kelly Quinn) screaming. Behind the bar, his wife, Trish (Jen Ponton), tells him to put his Bluetooth earphone on, as the customers will be there soon and may not enjoy the screaming. Coleman (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.) walks in and gives David a hug. It is at that point that David informs Coleman that his horror movie is an enormous piece of s**t.
“It is at that point David informs Coleman that his horror movie is an enormous piece of s**t.”
Coleman is taken aback, as he thought horror was a film genre where quality was an afterthought. That’s why he went ahead and produced one, and then asked his old friend David to edit it. David informs Coleman that this movie is beyond repair, that the continuity is f****d three ways from Sunday, and there is no hope. David then confronts Coleman about why Coleman is wasting his talent on blood-soaked garbage like this. They start arguing loudly, until David drops a major bomb and Christian (Erik Guilberg), one of Trish’s bartenders, tells them to quiet down and move away from the customers. They move to a booth, and David goes there. Hard. Then Coleman comes back. Double Hard. And Trish hears every word of it, horrified…
The only thing I resent about Resentment is that it takes four minutes before it really gets cooking. In another age, that would not be a problem. In fact, it would be an achievement to have a storyline catch fire within five minutes for a movie seen in a theater, or on video, or coming on a TV channel. The problem is that four minutes to ramp up will get you nothing in the streaming age. Unless the movie distinguishes itself in the first few seconds, everyone is gone by the first minute. If they are cinema sophisticates who have the patience to engage with the story, they will last two and a half minutes before giving up. Four minutes of not much means no one is there when the real movie starts, which is a shame in this case.
"…absolutely riveting and ultra-juicy."
