"Vans" is an American short film from 2017, so this one will have its fifth anniversary next year. it runs for under ten minutes and a great deal of that isthe opening sequence as well we the epilogue / closing credits, which are both longer than you would expect for such a relatively short film. The title gives away quite a bit as well too. Of course, the protagonist here is Doug Stamper from House of Cards or actor Michael Kelly, who was nominated for four Emmys for this role, his career-defining role you could certainly say. At this point. Who knows what else will come. In the show he plays a really grim character and this also applies to the majority of this film here. There are exceptions though. For example with his big smiley when he gets a brand new shovel or also how he kinds gets in the groove on one occasion and the end when he sees a certain character again is also a bit unusual for Stamper. But really, the references to said show in detail are very vague. I mean it seems as if he randomly starts killing people with his new shovel, which is an exaggerated reference to how he killed a certain character on this show and yes, the is the one who reappears at the end again. And she also has a shovel.
If I have any criticisms with this little film, then that I would have liked to see more Kevin Spacey. No matter what happened, I will always be a fan of him as an artist. But then again, I can see why they did not feature him too much on here, so he would not take the attention away from Kelly's character too much. Claire Underwood also does not get too much screen time. But Spacey's one moment and his face expression were already pure gold for this film. By the way, I should not say "they" but "he" in terms of who made this movie. That would be writer and director Ralph Scherer, a really prolific man int he camera department on all kinds of shows. These include Justified, Stranger Things, True Detective and of course House of Cards, which is the reason why he got to make this short film I suppose. And he followed up on it with two others since then, to it may not even be over. Or probably is as the show is over now too. Besides, why is Kelly not credited here? Anyway, at least you see him on the photo. Most of the film was in black-and-white, except the final scenes where they switched 100% to color, but the exception early on was that we see the color red nonetheless. Be it the inclusion of blood, the inclusion of red shoes or the bow around the shovel, the red was always there. I don't think there is too much meaning to that, but I still wonder why the filmmaker went back to color completely at the end. That was certainly a creative choice. Anyway, one thing I want to say here, except that Brosnahan is always nice to see (not as nice as Spacey though) is that the inclusion of all kinds of different songs and music worked very well here and may be the key reason why I gave this one three stars out of five and eventually a positive recommendation. It was a bit of a close call, but I think the positive here is more frequent than the negative. So go for it if you have seen and liked House of Cards too. Who would have thought that even a Britney Spears song could work oh so well with this ruthless character? This film is made for watching and you can do so on Scherer's vimeo channel. I will probably check out the two sequels at some point as well.
If I have any criticisms with this little film, then that I would have liked to see more Kevin Spacey. No matter what happened, I will always be a fan of him as an artist. But then again, I can see why they did not feature him too much on here, so he would not take the attention away from Kelly's character too much. Claire Underwood also does not get too much screen time. But Spacey's one moment and his face expression were already pure gold for this film. By the way, I should not say "they" but "he" in terms of who made this movie. That would be writer and director Ralph Scherer, a really prolific man int he camera department on all kinds of shows. These include Justified, Stranger Things, True Detective and of course House of Cards, which is the reason why he got to make this short film I suppose. And he followed up on it with two others since then, to it may not even be over. Or probably is as the show is over now too. Besides, why is Kelly not credited here? Anyway, at least you see him on the photo. Most of the film was in black-and-white, except the final scenes where they switched 100% to color, but the exception early on was that we see the color red nonetheless. Be it the inclusion of blood, the inclusion of red shoes or the bow around the shovel, the red was always there. I don't think there is too much meaning to that, but I still wonder why the filmmaker went back to color completely at the end. That was certainly a creative choice. Anyway, one thing I want to say here, except that Brosnahan is always nice to see (not as nice as Spacey though) is that the inclusion of all kinds of different songs and music worked very well here and may be the key reason why I gave this one three stars out of five and eventually a positive recommendation. It was a bit of a close call, but I think the positive here is more frequent than the negative. So go for it if you have seen and liked House of Cards too. Who would have thought that even a Britney Spears song could work oh so well with this ruthless character? This film is made for watching and you can do so on Scherer's vimeo channel. I will probably check out the two sequels at some point as well.
