Today’s movie is Colin Trevorrow’s early work, “Safety Not Guaranteed”. Basically, its a movie where a couple of journalists try to write a public interest story by dumping on what they think is a crazy guy who puts an add in the classified section. It features Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, and a bunch of other “that guy/gal” type actors you’ve seen if you watched TV in the last decade.
I have seen this film before, but not since it was released on DVD back in the day. I remember thinking it was pretty good, with everyone involved doing a pretty decent job. Back then, I had a bit of a thing for Aubrey Plaza (who am i kidding, i still do), and it seemed like just enough science fiction to warrant a watch. I realized it was on Netflix a few days ago, and it seemed liked it’d be a fun watch. Here is the trailer.
This movie is weird… That’s not a bad thing, it just is certainly weird. It actually has a pretty strong cast. It definitely isn’t a big budget movie, and definitely has the feel of an indie movie that seemed to be in the zeitgeist in the early 2010s. It’s a pretty compelling concept; a crazy guy in a small town doing his thing may not actually be crazy.
Aubrey Plaza is amazing as usual. I don’t really get why, but the whole borderline sarcastic chick is a super intriguing character that really sucks you in. As someone who has always felt on the outside looking in, her whole persona is super refreshing.
Mark Duplass is pretty good. I’m not a huge fan of his movies, but he was pretty good as part of “The League”. Here, he plays an emotionally damaged man who thinks he has invented a way to time travel. He’s come up with all sorts of plans and operating procedures for how this will work, and the main plot is him teaching Aubrey Plaza how to do time travel correctly.
Jake Johnson is basically the same character you see in New Girl. He’s an adult man-child trying to get back with a fling in this small town, which is the whole motivation for the journalists to do the story in the first place. His storyline is largely a throwaway one.
And lastly you have Karan Soni, who is kind of a “that guy”. You’ve seen him in a few things, probably most famously “Deadpool” as the taxi driver Dopinder. Here he just plays the shy college intern who Jake Johnson teaches to hook up with chicks. If you toss his storyline, this guys storyline goes too.
This kind of movie is unusual. A little bit of internet research led me to see this movie was made for $750K and made over $4 million. Not a bad profit, especially for a movie that I feel would normally just be forgotten about almost immediately. I genuinely enjoyed this movie, and I truly wish more movies like this were made today. Throw a couple million at a decent filmmaker and let them do their thing. More companies need to do this sort of stuff; good movies don’t need to have $100,0000,000 budget… Just a concept and some creativity.
I’d recommend this movie to just about anyone. Definitely not the best movie of all time, but it really doesn’t need to be. It’s a good couple of hours, and has a pretty heartfelt story. If you get a chance, fire up some Netflix and give it a shot.
Ain't That Bad - Movie Blog 