The Worst
2013 · 16m · United States
Directed by Larry Cohen
Tones: darkly comic, tense
After a bad night, Ryan leaves everything on the F train and strikes a contentious deal with Nick, an off-duty MTA worker of suspect morals, to chase the subway down before it vanishes with her luggage.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Cohen commits fully to the stupidest possible premise—chasing a subway car through New York like it's a heist—and somehow extracts real stakes and absurdist tension from the desperation. It's the kind of film that sounds like a sketch but refuses to wink at its own ridiculousness, which is exactly when contrarian comedy gets dangerous.
The film's economy of mise-en-scène—a confined space, two characters locked in escalating negotiation—recalls a lineage of chamber comedies that weaponize constraint; Cohen's cutting and dialogue pacing shows formal discipline beneath the chaos, reminiscent of early Safdie Brothers work in its tonal control.
The entire film pivots on Cohen's decision to treat the MTA worker as genuinely morally compromised rather than a lovable rogue—that tonal choice, sustained across sixteen minutes with zero sentimentality, is what transforms a one-joke premise into something that actually breathes and unsettles.