Janeane Garofalo plays the daughter and reluctant assistant to Jerry Stiller, right, who plays a scrappy filmmaker in "The Independent." Garofalo also seems reluctant to be in the film.

Life and Mort

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By Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com

People go to his movies for "the tits, the ass and the bombs," says filmmaker Morty Fineman's daughter, sketching dad's artistic horizon for the benefit of two "documentarians."

People go to movies like "The Independent," a mockumentary look at the rise and fall and rise of Fineman, in hopes of bagging a few laughs at the expense of the bombastic, Napoleonic director, who's continually batting around terms like "art," "mission" and "integrity," even as he concocts no-budget exploitation films (e.g., "Teenie Weenie Bikini Beach," a Frankie-and-Annette surfing movie with an all-midget cast). But the laughs come far too infrequently.

"The Independent" Rated R Playing at Wallace Restaurant Row

Perhaps screenwriters Mike Wilkins and Stephen Kessler intended "The Independent" as an homage to the charismatic yet crapulous Fineman, played with endearing ferocity by Jerry Stiller. If so, the fact that "The Independent" is itself a crappy movie makes a certain sense. Like their hero's oeuvre -- 427 films, each made at breakneck speed and with little concern for narrative logic -- Wilkins' and Kessler's effort unleashes a mother lode of ideas, very few of which ever fulfill their comic promise.

The best bits are the clips of Fineman's work sprinkled throughout, especially "The Eco-Angels," a '70s T&A flick in which a Charlie's-type trio combats environmental devastation. "Simplex Complex," meanwhile, lovingly described as "the first film about herpes that the Army ever made," shows Fineman in his Bergman period, complete with high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, lingering close-ups of herpetic faces and the obligatory chess game between a serviceman and the Grim Reaper on the beach. It's no funnier than your average SNL sketch, but such moments at least demonstrate a healthy impertinence toward film history. (Too bad we don't get to see snippets from "Twelve Angry Men and a Baby" or "The Man With Two Things," also reported works by Fineman.)

But "The Independent" is unfortunately saddled with a limp plot, something to do with Fineman's creditors demanding he repay the millions they've bankrolled, which forces him to tighten his pursestrings (he moves his entire production company into several rooms at a seedy motel) and enlist the aid of his surly daughter Paloma (Janeane Garofalo). Paloma, improbably, becomes offended when her father proposes that they shoot a musical biopic on the life of a serial killer currently on deathrow. Dad sees it as the route to financial solvency, Paloma as tasteless.

Along the way Fineman is approached by the townsfolk of Chaparral, Nev., the populace wanting to honor him at their first annual film festival. It's never clear why the much-derided Fineman would be singled out, nor why real-life directors like Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Corman would describe him as a "visionary" and "innovator" during their cameo appearances. And it's here that "The Independent" crosses the line from satire to absurdity as the filmmakers play fast-and-loose with Fineman's characterization.

For their flick to work, Fineman would have to be either truly terrible or remarkable in a scrappy, Cormanesque way. Kessler and Wilkins float among these possibilities -- along with the one that he might be truly great -- like aimless bubbles, with the result that "The Independent" comes off as flat champagne.

Perhaps they should return to Fineman's canon for further inspiration. As one of their mock interviewees, a film professor, puts it, "You can learn more from a Morty Fineman failure than a Fellini failure, and you certainly have a lot more to choose from."

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