Kabluey Movie Review

Directed by Scott Pendergrast

Starring Scott Pendergrast and Lisa Kudrow

Availability on dvd today 09/16/2008

Ill admit right off the bat this review is part biased cuz a huge portion of the movie was filmed in my neighborhood. I was hoping I was going to be in the movie but It looks like they edited it out. Having said that this is still a really good quirky comedy. It starts off really slow but after as soon he becomes "Kabluey" then the movie kicks into high gear.

The movie is about this loser named "Salmon", that gets invited to his sister in laws house in Austin to help her take care of her kids while the husband (his brother) is at war in Iraq. Needless to say he's not a very good babysitter and the two boys absolutely hate him. And in one hilarious scene, they actually try to kill him. Lisa Kudrow hates Salmon but since he's family she helps him get a job at her work. The job is basically dressing up as the company mascot and standing on the side of the country road handing out flyers to anyone that would stop to see what the hell is going on. The next third of the movie is Salmon as Kabluey standing on the side of the road while state workers laugh at him, freaking a crazy lady out and finally getting invited by a rich woman to work a weekend at a childs bday party. Minor spoiler: Lisa Kudrow is cheating on her husband with this douche at work and Salmon finds out. In a non conventional way Salmon's goal is to help the boys like him and help his brother out by ruining Lisa's affair.
The movie is subtle humor and is more situational than actual jokes or slapstick. Even though there is one awesome scene of Salmon taking a piss on the side of the road that had me rolling. (Does it say something about me that two of my favorite scenes of any movie this year involve piss?) While its nice to have the straight up silly humor such as Superbad its also nice to have these kind of movies to watch also. This will not be everyones cup of tea but for people that are into Wes Anderson movie's or comedies that are more cerebral than this is a definite recommend. I predict its gonna be one of those movies people ignore at first but over time I think it could be a hidden gem.

Scott Pendergrast does a solid performance as the nerdy incompetent Salmon and he also has a great feel for direction. Im definitely looking out for future movies from him. Its a shame this didnt get better marketing and released nationwide but im sure its probably would have been just critically successful and not commercially. On a scale of 1-10 I give this a 'keep your mouth closed while you sleep' 8.3 out of 10.

This is the scene where I was following behind them in my car in my neighborhood.