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“You’re about as useless as a short story.”

For about the first twenty minutes, Crime Fiction plays out like an ultra-low-budget thriller about a depressed writer who accidentally kills his girlfriend (don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler); reasonably well crafted given the obviously low budget, but not particularly memorable. James Cooper (Jonathan Eliot, who also wrote the script) is an author whose first novel was so poorly received that he loses his writing contract and is reduced to copy-editing in the basement of a dreary Chicago publisher, mocked by a pair of snarky interns. Yeah, yeah, we get it – his life is shit. Been there, done that, move along. Arriving home, he gets a surprise visit from his NYC-based girlfriend Hilary (Amy Sloan) whose debut novel is meeting with rave reviews, making her the toast of the Big Apple (and there’s nothing better than big apple toast). They argue about the relative merits of their work, and Hilary ends up falling out the window to her death on the cold pavement below. James freaks out, piles her body into his car, and buries her in a field deep in the country.

But when he gets back home, he hits on the idea of writing a book about a failed writer who kills his girlfriend and then writes a book about it, and here’s where Crime Fiction gets all “meta” and suddenly takes a welcome right-turn into black comedy. The rest of the film details Cooper’s rise to fame as his book is celebrated by critics and fans, as well as gonzo crime writer Don Lee Boone (Christian Stolte, Prison Break), who pitches to Cooper that they collaborate on a followup. These scenes are bizarrely outlandish and often very funny, never falling back into the conventional by-the-numbers routine of the first act.

There are also stylistic shifts: the first chunk of the movie has almost wall-to-wall score, which smacks of directorial insecurity, as if the filmmakers were afraid to let the actors dominate any given scene without the layering in often intrusive music. The score (credited to David Bashwiner) is also downright weird in places, including a couple of odd vocal tracks that sound like somebody’s brother-in-law’s garage band. But once Cooper hits the big time, the music shifts into a fairly minimalist approach, and becomes more refined. I’m not sure if this was intentional or whether the filmmakers just got more confident as they went along, but it’s definitely noticeable. The micro-budget is evident in several scenes (both Hilary’s window fall and a car crash early in the film happen offscreen), the cinematography is a little grungy and unflattering, and a Cooper’s sojourn to the country (to bury the body) is so dark you can barely tell what’s happening, but ultimately the film overcomes these technical shortcomings. The rather banal opening scenes are a calculated risk, but the film needs them to fuel the more arch material later on.

Crime Fiction succeeds because it never becomes too precious about its post-modernism, never wallows in look-how-clever-I-am posturing, instead throttling forward with an aggressive pace that zips along for a brisk 80 minutes, with no individual scene overstaying its welcome. Brevity is the watchword here, and director Will Slocombe is canny enough to get in, get his point across, and get out. If only more filmmakers were this efficient.

As with most low-low budget productions, the quality of the acting is variable, but most everyone acquits themselves well enough. The standouts are Stolte as the loony Boone, and lovely Katrina Lenk as the mysterious Lauren. Jonathan Eliot is fine as Cooper, but it’s his clever script that really impresses; more please.

One assumes the film was shot digitally, and the DVD presentation reflects the limitations of the format; heavy grain and some pixilization are evident in the darker scenes, and the aforementioned cinematography doesn’t do anyone’s complexion any favors, but it’s as crisp as can be expected. The only extras are a way-too-spoilery trailer and a small selection of photos. There’s also a digital press kit can be accessed via DVD-ROM. For once I’m lamenting the lack of an audio commentary; it would’ve been nice to have heard some stories about how this wonky film came to be made.

Any film critic will tell you that finding something unexpectedly wonderful in a pile of drek is one of the reasons we keep slogging through hundreds of repetitive titles a year. Crime Fiction isn’t the second coming of Reservoir Dogs (despite the obviously Tarantino-esque title) or Night of the Living Dead, but it’s a briskly-made film with a lot of punch that deserves a wider audience. Put this one on your Netflix list; it’s worth a look.

4