“Triangle Square” is a dreary, clumsy little would-be comedy about a twentysomething loser who quits his job as a porno magazine writer, dumps his unfaithful girlfriend and returns to his family’s Southern California home for his father’s funeral. While back in his old neighborhood, he connects with Gen X friends who behave like obnoxious, overgrown adolescents. Inevitably, he finds himself. Zzzzzzzz.
“Triangle Square” has precious little going for it. Most of the acting rarely rises above the level of amateurish and Jeff Terry Anderson’s direction is flat and dull as a driver’s education training film. The verbosity of the screenplay is awkwardly weighed down with the painful problem that no one in the film has anything that is genuinely worth saying (the film’s press notes promise “hilariously honest and revealing conversations and experiences”…so much for believing press notes).
To its advantage, though, the film provides a strange calling card for Donny Terranova, who plays the ex-smut scribe looking for himself. While Terranova is responsible for co-writing the stale screenplay and co-producing this obviously no-budget effort, he redeems himself on camera with a self-assured and charming screen persona which is remarkable by itself and remarkably out of place in this glorified home movie. It is fairly disconcerting to watch an actor with obvious star potential trapped in a film which has no clue how to present him properly. With any luck Terranova will quickly find himself starring in films of a stronger quality.
“Triangle Square” also offers a rare opportunity for Matthew Lillard to appear in a film which does not co-star Freddie Prinze Jr. Lillard turns up here in a tiny guest role as a beach bum with the unexplained moniker of Snake Eater. He has nothing to do with the film, which is just as well since the film will ultimately do nothing for him.
