The Dangerous Type
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Tipper Newton
Tones: humorous, tender, theatrical
A mechanic in a small Midwestern town has just won a bus ticket to California when a drifter rolls in with a busted red convertible. Every cliche of the genre arrives on cue, and Newton plays them so deliberately you start wondering who's actually pulling the strings.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Garret Dillahunt slumming it in a NoBudge short with a red convertible and a bus ticket plot — fine, you have my attention. Bonus points for a filmmaker who knows the cliches are cliches and uses them anyway.
Cliches deployed not by accident but as instrument — Newton leans into noir-tinged B-movie Americana with a knowing half-smile, which is harder than playing it straight. Lo-fi Lynch-by-way-of-Wenders done with commitment.
Noir-tinged Americana cliches deployed as instrument with a knowing half-smile, plus Garret Dillahunt as the drifter — that casting alone earns the genre commitment. American Checkers cigarettes is the kind of made-up brand a careful writer invents.
Reviews
a charismatic, slyly funny performance, that taps joyfully into cliche without spilling into parody