Teddy Bomb: An explosion of Fun
One of the best things about film festivals is finding the ‘little films that could’ where the love involved swamps the actual budget size. Teddy Bomb is one of these gems of a film. It’s making its Canadian Premiere at Blood in the Snow as their Saturday midnight film.
Christian’s life is not matching his to do list. His apartment hasn’t been cleaned, he stood up his girlfriend Jenny yet again (but she still brings him his pull list from the comic store) and he’s perpetually late for his job as the guy who delivers the beer when you call a beer delivery service. And then he gets beat up an underage beer purchaser, who also stiffed him on the fee.
The next day, after dreams of a zombie robot apocalypse, he delivers beer to an apartment where no one answers, but the door was open. There’s bundles of fifty dollar bills, lines of cocaine lying on the table, and a teddybear. Christian ignores the quick money in front of him, considers picking up two twenties (presumably the delivery fee), but instead somehow activates a voice mode on the teddy bear.
And then he gets attacked.
From there a mysterious voice gives him detailed instructions, and he escapes the man with the hat (not a yellow hat, if there are Curious George fans out there) and a machete. The teddy bear is an A.I. who is amongst other things, a bomb. Which is a problem when it WANTS to explode, and seems to be smarter than its accidental liberator. The movie is full of fight scenes, alone with a deepening understanding of the terrorists’ plot, and Christian’s role in the world.
This movie knows its genre and has fun with it. There are several guards that spend time waiting, so they multitask: one is eating a bag of chips while in a different area another is on the phone with his cable company. At one point Christian is handed a gun and asks “How many guns do you have?” The obvious answer is: “Never enough.”
While it has the look of a student film, and a limited number of characters (the credits cite the remaining crew for masked guards), the script is clever and has better internal logic than many big budget features. I was especially pleased to see an average human’s reaction to unexpected violence. The use of practical effects and cunning camera angles adds to camp factor. Kudos to writer director Justin Decloux for a very fun ride. This movie has a lot of heart, many types of blood, quippy lines, and a squid playing solitaire. Definitely worth staying up for.
