Put Down
2014 · 10m · Reino Unido
Directed by Rick Limentani
Genres: crime, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic
John is a socially awkward man deep in debt until a lucky accident launches him into a new career as a black-market pet exterminator, ingeniously helping families who can no longer afford their pets.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A premise so genuinely perverse—black-market pet euthanasia as economic desperation meets entrepreneurial hustle—that it shouldn't work, but Limentani commits to the absurdity without winking, which is exactly when dark comedy actually lands.
The film operates within a recognizable lineage of Coen-adjacent character studies, though the tonal control here feels slight; it's competent but doesn't quite achieve the formal precision or thematic depth that would make it resonate beyond its high-concept hook.
The decision to play John's social awkwardness as genuine vulnerability rather than quirk—a single performance choice that grounds what could've been a one-joke premise—is what elevates this from premise-driven to actually affecting.