Given that director Mark Lewis’s “Baystate Blues” has been receiving good reviews around the ‘net, one might assume that his short film, “Blue Collar Bastards,” is to be of similar quality. Well, remember (as the old adage goes) what happens when we assume…
Three guys arrive at a bombed-out shell of an old stone church, to make measurements and preparations for a pending restoration. Then they eat lunch, talk about football, and discuss whether or not one of them is gay. One of them gets philosophical for a moment. The end.
“Blue Collar Bastards” is badly shot and pointless.
I am not sure why Lewis bothered to make this movie. There doesn’t seem to be a motivation here. He didn’t seem to have a point of view, and there are no ideas to be found. I don’t mean that there is a lack of big, heavy, philosophical Bergmanish subtexts (which would be excusable), I mean that there are no ideas at all. It feels like Lewis decided he wanted to make a movie, rounded up three pals, and arrived on location with no plan whatsoever. The result: ten minutes of your time better spent picking lint out of your navel.
