I got the chance to view a rough cut of Alejandro Montoya Marín’s latest short Perps, set to debut February 16th at The Santa Fe Film Festival. While the cut wasn’t entirely finished, the ten minute short is a fast, grin-inducing tale of revenge. As seen in Marín’s feature Monday, the director exudes style when it comes to his fast cuts and transitions. Supported with strong exaggerated sound effects to make the scenes basically bleed with charm. However for a ten minute short, the rough cut does have some imperfect moments, stumbling in its second half  (namely when the revenge plot begins). This is prominently because the sound design isn’t finished and that makes the direction the film takes in these last few minutes slightly less enjoyable. 

 

Now onto the actors; John Kaler and Tamas Nadas play the “perps,” who are thrown into an awkward confrontation with an emotionally distraught police officer, played by Kenneth McGlothin. The trio work well off one another and McGlothin is the stand out among the small cast. Madi Frost, the partner on patrol with McGlothin’s Officer Diego, has the least amount of intrigue among the group, with small spurts of dialogue but not a whole lot else beyond being a glorified background actor in the forefront. Also stay tuned for an unexpected, classic Marvel fanboy (such as myself) moment near the close of the film - it’s epic. 

 

Here’s my recommendation: Watch this short film, you won’t regret it. The only large fault of this short is how irresponsible it is for the filmmaker to know that the audience is going to want more; not because it doesn’t give us enough, but because these characters are too good not to be fully elaborated on.