In this edition of The Shortround, we go all sci fi. JG Barnes, director of Thieves sent me his short to check out. I figured, let's break the monotony and check out a sci-fi short. Here be the nuts and bolts.One scene. One Room. A nice long chat simmers between a cold and precise Agent (Kelly Kirstein) and a brilliant yet fanatical terrorist (Sheldon Simmons). This man harbors the key to saving lives or the tool of ultimate vanity. But what exactly is it? As the veil slowly burns, the truth unfolds.
the jaded viewer says: Well to call Thieves a short would be a stretch. It's more of an excerpt from a proposed feature movie. Barnes short, done on a $300 budget is to be admired as the set, the surveillance POV and the acting is all solid. But thrown into the mix of an interrogation between a replicant? and a revolutionary is intentional dialogue of ideas of what it means to be human and how we can easily lose our identity with our tech. Cyberpunk is ever evident but one can get easily lost in the spewing of back and forth questions and answers. Sure budget limitations aside, one can forgo action or CGI, but if the conversation is confusing, it's headed towards disaster.
It's hard to gauge Thieves. We haven't had a decent cyberpunk film in such a long time (Johnny Pneumonic anyone?). I love the ideas of data transfer, a dystopian universe and a revolution against an evil corporation/government entity but I'm not sure where Thieves will go if made into a feature. Lots of interesting parallels to our modern world can be explored, one you hope may be touched on at some point.
Look out for Thieves as it makes a run on the festival circuit.
Check out the trailer below.
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