Careless is a curious little movie, shot on a miniscule budget it has more than a passing similarity to After Hours, Bottle Rocket, and Rushmore. Starring Colin Hanks (Son of Tom), Careless follows the strange case of a finger found in Wiley Roth's apartment and where it could have come from.
Sales assistant Wiley (Colin Hanks) is fed up with his life, he works in a quirky Sherlock Holmes inspired bookstore in L.A. Forced to be jaunty and in character all day the last thing that Wiley needs when he returns home is a mystery, but that is what he finds. While doing the dishes he glances down to notice on the floor a finger, who does it belong to? Where did it come from?
The best part of the movie is spent with a series of imaginary events being played out to explain the reason behinds the finger being found in the kitchen, this varies from the seedy gay drug dealers next door hacking off a non payers finger as a punishment, to two young thugs engaged in a finger tossing contest in an aim to get a finger through the window of Wiley's apartment (no explanation of how they got the fingers in the first place of course), the different scenarios get worse and worse, and funnier and funnier, although the solution to the mystery actually is available to Wiley pretty much near the start of the movie, though Wiley is far to embarrassed to laugh.
The usually clean shaven Hanks is quite hard to spot in the movie as the rough and ready (though incredibly dull Wiley), so much so that having watched the entire movie I was rather surprised when I discovered that Wiley was played by Hanks. This is a really unusual casting for the actor, but a casting that really suits him well, having watched him its quite hard to see him playing any other role without having to refer back to this movie.
The arrival of Cheryl puts a strange spin on the movie; if your familiar with the British sitcom Peep Show then Cheryl will look incredibly familiar, played by Rachel Blanchard, the actress is best known as the neurotic Nancy from the television series. In the show she causes havoc wherever she goes, and here she too has a similar style about her, causing rows and bizarre scenarios wherever she goes. When a man asks her a question in a bar she smashes a bottle on her head, and this is the most normal that you see the character behave.
Fans of TV show Monk, will find Tony Shalhoub far from his usual compulsive obsessive behaviour, living in a filthy flat, completely obnoxious, and totally unsupportive of his son Wiley. When Wiley goes to him with his problems, Mr. Roth instead chooses to laugh at him. When the finger situation is raised Roth senior takes them all on a trip to a peanut obsessed witch doctor who decides that in order to find out the truth behind the finger must first see if it floats. Roth senior is beyond the level of oddball behaviour of the movies other characters.
I won't deny there are a few times that the movie gets a little frustrating, chiefly because Wiley stumbles around the subject of the story of the finger when he encounters who is obviously the owner. There are no answers however until the very end of the movie, and yes while occasionally frustrating you can fully understand why the mystery must remain.
Rather like any rather good sitcom, Curb Your Enthusiasm is the one that springs most to mind, the movie gives you fragments of a story, that by the movies conclusion all slowly string together. Unlike a lot of comedy movies that do the rounds, this one is at times genuinely funny. Had the movie not been so "independant" to the extent that to be fair few will ever see it, some of the movies moments could very well go down in history as some of the funniest moments in movie history, a bizarre incident in a back alley between two friends, that slowly involves ones girlfriend and a semi dressed next door neighbour; this verbal fight turns into a food fight with great distances between participants, it's almost a homage to the classic Laurel & Hardy movies, of 80 years ago.
Being a low budget independent picture, seeing Careless might not be a straightforward task, but with a little time and attention, you'll find tracking down this movie is a reward, and if you're a fan of movies like After Hours, Rushmore, and The Royal Tenenbaums then you'll find this movie a rare gem in a sea of very bland, often very similar movies.
