Trick
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Johnny Frohman
Genres: comedy, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, humorous
A man lingers at a skate park dispensing unsolicited critique and offers a kid twenty bucks to let him ride the board, and the small con expands from there. A study in pathetic male confidence.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Matt Barats is a national resource and this is exactly the kind of pathetic-guy minor-key short the streamers will never touch.
Matt Barats' awkward-bravado register applied to a transparent skate-park con is a study in pathetic male confidence — the kind of small social cringe most movies skip past. Tim Robinson with a skateboard and worse posture is the right comparison.
Matt Barats lingering at a skate park with awkward bravado, offering twenty bucks to a kid to ride the board — that's pathetic male confidence rendered with patience, not punchline. Frohman's third NoBudge feature that year, which signals a real working pace.
Reviews
The always entertaining Barats brings awkward bravado to the perfectly inane trickery.