Director/writer David Harari’s comedy Tooth Shop Fiasco will mess you up, seriously. James Lassen (Blaine Maye) is the singer in a metal band with his brother David (Nick Corey), who is in a coma. James has sworn he won’t sing until his brother wakes up. Everyone around him thinks he is wasting his life, but he’s counting on an appointment with his dentist (and his crush), Janelle to sort his life out. Meanwhile, the hygienist from the dentist’s office, Jennifer (Katie Folger) tells him that she’s attracted to him, regardless of what happens with Janelle, but James finds her unwanted attention aggressive and off-putting.
James’ personality lands somewhere on a continuum between “Bill & Ted” and “Jeff Spicoli.” He’s not taking life too seriously, and he’s not exactly a cerebral individual. He winds up driving around with Jennifer, and she conjures a fully equipped dental chair out of nowhere and offers to clean his teeth. With James mooning around about Janelle, we need someone to give him the “Chasing Amy” speech.
“… James is in a metal band with his brother, who is in a coma …”
The film runs only just over an hour, but that’s plenty of time for the viewer to ask, more than once, what the actual f**k is going on? It’s like that feeling when you stand up into a cabinet door you weren’t aware was open, and you might have lost consciousness for a second, and you might have a concussion, or be bleeding. That’s how you’ll feel after watching Tooth Shop Fiasco. I was waiting for J. Frank Parnell to ask James if he “ever felt as though his mind had started to erode.” The unstructured strangeness of Repo Man is a solid comparison.
It is seems likely that there was a non-zero amount of weed involved in the making of this film. Things we know for certain include: we want to hear James sing and we want to meet Janelle. Some threads remain unresolved, and questions unanswered, such as who the hell calls a dental office a “tooth shop?” One positive note is the economy of words used in the title, Tooth Shop Fiasco. Whether Harari is referring to the events in the script, or talking about the movie itself, it still works either way.
The end credits song is catchy as is the rest of the soundtrack. Harari subtitled the film “A James Lassen Story,” which implies that there either were, or will be, more James Lassen stories and you may find your interest piqued enough to wonder what happens next. I can’t tell you if Tooth Shop Fiasco is good or bad. I can’t even tell you what the hell it is, except to say that it is weird fun if you don’t try too hard to figure it out. If the warm glow of chaotic confusion and deliberate freak-out is your jam, then this movie is for you.
"…A deliberate freak-out, weird fun..."
