This independent little gem shows what brilliant movie-makers can create on a small budget but with a gung-ho cast and crew.
Chuck Smith portrays the title character who is always spit upon. We see him as a child being beaten up and bullied. In his career as a salesman and as a husband, he is once again being used and abused. But then comes this particular day we see him undergoing god-awful bad luck--from the time he gets up and tries to use the bathroom to prepare for work to his car giving out of gas on a deserted road, gets fired from his job and then has his head bashed in and left for dead by the boyfriend of his cheating wife.
He survives and is transformed into a man whose had it with being nice and accommodating and passive. He's ready to kill!
Chuck Smith is an overweight actor who has a sweet face and an adorable personality who you immediately feel sympathy for. I could find nothing about this star actor anywhere. It's like he was created just for this movie and then vanished. But we're with him all the way as he overlooks his wife's vicious indifference to him or his work as she primps in the bathroom as he continually pleads with her to let him shave and bathe and prepare for work. You instantly hate her. And then we see the husband dressing and tying his shoes as he still struggles to dress and head for his job. There's something pitiful about the way he ties his shoes and fixes his collar without benefit of a mirror--as if he's used to settling for defeat. Although his wife said she had filled up the gas tank from her shopping spree the day before, the poor guy gives out of gas on a lonely road as he heads to his job.
A vicious truck driver won't let him pass and knocks him off the road. Then a van full of kids stop by and offer him a ride but then race away as he tries to get on. More and more incidents pile on, especially his brutal boss and supervisor at work who tell him to drop dead and go to hell.
When he makes it back home, he finds his wife balling with her secret boyfriend and they attack him, convinced he's dead. But he's not. He survives the brutal beating and a new man emerges--this one dropping all of his apologetic armor and goes after everyone who mistreated him that particular day.
The way he murders each victim is gory--but fun. He does to these deadbeats what we've often wished we had done in the past to bullies or hostile coworkers or family members or classmates.
The cast look like they were gathered up from a neighborhood and told to act out the roles. The amateur coarseness of their performances adds to the authenticity of each scene. The "young people" all look pretty mature and repulsive. None are attractive and truly look like small town slobs.
Besides the dynamic performance of Chuck Smith, Christopher Hunt is good and repulsive as the boyfriend who beats up the husband.
This film was made by Brian Gaillard and Daniel Murphy who appear in a cameo dressed up as cops. We're all excited about what movie they'll make next. And it would be a cherry on top the cake if they could find a big, juicy role for the charismatic Chuck Smith who made such a memorable killer. He's got it all for major stardom.
