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SLINGSHOT COPS:
OFFICER FRIENDLY IN SMALL TOWN AMERICANA
by
Thomas M. Sipos, managing editor [March 2, 2019]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com]
Slingshot Cops is a gentle comedy set in idyllic small town
Americana. How idyllic is life in this small New England town?
The cops don't carry guns. They carry slingshots, much like
adult Tom Sawyers.
That's typical of the Roxburgh & Farley aesthetic.
Slingshot Cops is their fourth film. As always, Charles
Roxburgh directs, Matt Farley stars, and they co-write the
script.
In all their films, the adult characters appear to have varying
degrees of arrested development, retaining their innocence,
content with life's simple pleasures. Smart phones are nearly
invisible. Young adults communicate via walkie talkies and tin
cans connected with wire. Bands peddle their CDs on little red
wagons. Everyone hangs out at the local cupcake shop. (Much like
folks in
Twin Peaks are obsessed with donuts and cherry pie, in
Roxburgh & Farley films, it's cupcakes.)
Which is not to say the characters are retarded. In fact,
they're quite literate. Even children speak in the formal,
literate clichés of a
David Letterman skit. Like David Letterman, Roxburgh &
Farley find ironic humor in modern marketing and managerial
clichés, which their characters speak in stilted fashion.
In
Slingshot Cops -- in all Roxburgh & Farley films --
characters speak in the stiff, stilted fashion of bad actors.
But this is so consistent, it become an aesthetic style rather
than a drawback. (Much like the cast's deadpan delivery in
Hal Hartley's films.) In an interview for the Hollywood
Investigator, Farley said that his (mostly nonprofessional)
cast are instructed to try their best, because that's how you
get truly bad acting. Their performances wouldn't be nearly so
bad if they tried to act badly on purpose.
So the bad acting contributes to the comedy.
Slingshot Cops is a horror comedy, with (like all of
Roxburgh & Farley's films) a ridiculously non-scary monster. In
Slingshot Cops it's Sensafoot, a monster who steals your
senses by placing his foot on your nose, ear, eyes, etc. Helping
the
Slingshot Cops track and destroy the Sensafoot is Eastern
European Man (played with a phony accent that doesn't resemble
anything out of Eastern Europe). I suppose his character is
inspired by
Bela Lugosi.
Farley has said that he and Roxburgh try to recapture the charm
of old monster movies. The ones sans realistic gore or
expensive special effects.
Slingshot Cops, like all their work, does have a certain
charm. The film is sans
violence, sans nudity, sans swearing. Think of
a
David Lynch film -- quirky
small town charm -- but sans
darkness.
Get used to the word sans. It's a French word that
means without. It helps to know that, because it's used
often enough in
Slingshot Cops. That's the sort of charmingly incongruent
literacy you'll find in a Roxburgh & Farley script.
Tough-talking cops, placing an order for cupcakes sans
sprinkles.
Roxburgh & Farley's works include
Freaky Farley,
Monsters, Marriage and Murder in
Manchvegas, and
Don't Let the Riverbeast Get
You! They are true auteurs in that all their films
are aesthetically alike, while resembling no other films out
there. Their films are always, clearly, by Roxburgh & Farley and
nobody else. Nor will anyone else's film be mistaken for a
Roxburgh & Farley film.
I suppose some hipsters will enjoy their films for the "irony,"
but don't mistake Roxburgh & Farley's humor as an attack on
small town Americana. As with Lynch's work, a sincere nostalgia
runs through Roxburgh & Farley's films (as Farley has explicitly
stated in interviews).
Not everyone will enjoy their works. Some might find their films
too tame. Others might not enjoy the innocence that arises from
bad acting (one of their stated goals). However, I've seen all
their work, and I think there's real artistry here, real
entertainment value, and a unique aesthetic perspective.
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