Drop Box - review

Drop Box (unrated)
Dir. Anesty and Spiros Carasoulos

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Heard the one about the young pop princess superstar who made a private ‘sex tape’ with a couple of close friends then mistakenly took it back to her local video store? You have now… Bet you’d like to see it huh?
Step up to Drop Box – the latest in the long and only semi distinguished line of slacker situation comedies (other examples of which you can read reviews of here are of the low budget kind - bums , or the mainstream release kind - employee of the month).
The sex tape in question here is the sort of highly inflammable material that could inflict shock and awe on unwitting audiences (especially as it was returned to the video store in the box of the Mariah Carey ultimate cheese smackdown also known as Glitter). If you thought Pamela Anderson/Tommy Lee, Paris Hilton or even Brit model Keeley’s little home creations created a media stir – Mindy’s will blow you away. And so it is that Randal clerk style disciple Tom (played by David ‘first timer with some promising charisma’ Cormican) becomes the luckiest guy on the planet… It is into his video drop box that the hallowed pop nymphet sensation’s tape is erm, dropped. He does what any red blooded slacker video store clerk would in the situation and refuses to give the tape back to the highly embarrassed Mindy (Rachel ‘pretty yummy’ Sehl) – unless she can fulfill his increasingly cheeky demands – and I’m not talking about making her pay her late fees…
Drop Box could more or less be considered a ‘sister’ film to Kevin Smith’s immortal Clerking saga (the slightly less attractive, less funny and less easy sister – but sister none the less) and while it tries hard in the attitude department, ultimately it falls somewhat short of that classic breakthrough independent. Written and directed by family duo Anesty and Spiros Carasoulos and produced with obviously limited resources – I did find myself amused by this slice of Americana everyday life and times. There is genuinely funny banter to be heard – from Cormican, Shel is easy on the eye and whilst the plot takes a long time to go nowhere it does have regular stereotypical video store customers that get abused. – Actually I had a bit of a flashback during the film to when I was at school and my mate Mike had a video clerk job, we’d hang out watching the latest films – eating the stock, over-charging customers with imaginary late fees, telling them films were out (even if it was the one we were watching on the in store TV) just to see their disappointed looks on their faces, chatting up the cute babes etc etc… Ah happy days…

So why does Drop Box only get 2 stars out of 5? Basically because the filmmakers never show us even a peek at the footage on the tape! I don’t care if there are POV shots looks out from Mindy’s breasts – this is one film that would seriously have benefited from some blatant sexist T&A but that’s obviously not their thing. As long as it’s not your thing either then this is nice little calling card and we can hope to see more / better material from the Carasoulos in the future…

Darkmatters rating system (out of 5):
Action öö – engaing stream of customer related banter
Laughs ööö – yep – got some funny stuff in it
Horror ö – nope, unless you try to visualise the ‘dwarf sex porn’ they talk about
Babes ööö – Shel could be a major league hottie to watch

Overall öö1/2 ( get that video store ambience in your own home!)

Darkmatters: H O M E