Guy X DVD Review

"GUY X" reviews

DVD

GUY X

Author

anonymous

Date reviewed

2006-03-24 16:31:45

Provider

DVD Review

Famously known for losing his virginity to an American Pie, Jason Biggs turns out a mature and assured performance here, ensuring he won't always be typecast as a high school geek.

He plays Rudy Spruance (Biggs), a soldier who expects to be posted to the sunny tropics of Hawaii but is actually transported to a US air base in Greenland and mistakenly identified as information officer Martin Pederson, posted to work on the local newspaper that's set up to boost morale. We follow him though a set of comical events including ridiculous escape attempts that are bound to bring a smile. However, the tempo changes when Rudy stumbles across a ward of mutilated veterans officially reported by the government, in a sinister cover up, as being killed in action during their posting to Vietnam. One of which is a horribly disfigured ex-pat called Guy X.

The end result is a bizarre mix of wannabe thriller with morals and an oddball comedy. Unsurprisingly the two don't sit comfortably together. During the premiere at the Taomina Film Festival, director Saul Metzstein gave three reasons as to why he made the movie. His idea of a war film not actually set during war time, the reaction of a character who discovers courage without having it "thrust upon him" and wanting to put an actor made famous for having sex with a pie in a scene with a puffin. All as confusing as the film itself.

Metzstein delivers a movie that tries its best to be compared to Catch 22, but doesn't quite catch the appropriate feel or spirit. An interesting story nonetheless with bold performances by Michael Ironside as Guy X, and Biggs.

Includes audio commentary from director Saul Metzstein and actor Jason Biggs, UK exclusive interviews with Biggs and Metzstein plus deleted scenes.