Girl Walks Into a Bar

I didn't learn.  After last year's ill-fated Electra Luxx, I could have told myself to stay away from disjointed character portraits from director Sebastian Gutierrez.  Instead, the temptation to see an internet film in a theater (and to avoid the hoopla of the Source Code premiere) was too great, and I dove in for another round.

This time his film Girl Walks Into a Bar is based around the character of Carla Gugino, who is an ex-cop helping to nab a naive dentist (Zachary Quinn) trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife.  When her secret audio confession is stolen by another bar patron, she goes on a one-woman quest to track it down and secure the case.  Along the way, every single character you meet gets a full scene to fill out a life history no matter how disconnected it may be from the rest of the story.  To compound these side-tracks, the primary plot wraps up (with a phone call) and ends about two-thirds of the way into the film, and then the film just keeps going.  All those long unedited dance sequences and character portraits just had to be told, cohesive story be damned.

I think Mr. Gutierrez could make a short, tight, quality film under the watchful eye of an assertive editor.  Clearly he lacks this oversight.

Girl Walks Into a Bar
2011, 80 minutes, directed by Sebastian Gutierrez

This was supposed to have been the world premiere, but they point out that the film "leaked onto YouTube" and had been seen by 35,000 people already today.  For a film intended for internet release, I think that disqualifies the "premiere" moniker.  Though, of those viewers, I wonder if any made it to the end.