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A group of friends in Hollywood scramble to find a way to finance their film project after plan ‘A’ falls through, but plan ‘B’ could be very dangerous for all involved.

Director Joe Eckardt’s film High Hopes was filmed under the name Nice Guys, and the production dates are from 2006, but it finally sees the light of day courtesy of Lion’s Gate.

Tom (Corin Nemec) is a struggling actor who is dating an up and coming actress named Morgan (Jennifer Finnigan), who he and his buddies hope to get involved in their film project, thus lending it more of a commercial draw.  These hopes are dashed shortly after Tom auditions well for the new Bond film, only to have Morgan dump him later the same day, effectively kiboshing their film plans.

Tom’s roommates Ben (David Faustino) and Quebert (Jason Mewes) step in and help him concoct a scheme to raise the money for their film. Quebert has inside info on a secret stash of government engineered weed that his dealer has recently inherited from a friend that was killed in a dispute (producer Danny Trejo in a small cameo) and they decide to try and get the weed back, then claim a large ‘no questions asked’ reward offered by the FBI.

Complicating this timeframe is Ben being saddled with his hateful girlfriend Cindy’s (Lacey Chabert) catatonic deaf mute younger brother Wendell (Jason Marsden), who through a convoluted set of circumstances has to stay with them for the weekend.  We get the comedy of the leads leaving this poor guy tied up to a chair while they go out to meet some women, as well as leaving him with a less than stellar babysitter played by Edward Furlong.

Along the way Tom meets Julie (Cecily Gambrell), who is a cute blonde recently arrived in town, aspiring to be the next hot porno…director.  Their budding relationship is the background story to the main theme of the guys trying to get together with Quebert’s dealer Rocko (Michael DeLorenzo), who has developed problems of his own since inheriting the weed.  He now has two rather unorthodox FBI agents who have suddenly started staking out his house and making his life uncomfortable.

This review may end up being a little short, as there’s ultimately not all that much happening in this movie, in spite of the drug deal scheme, the romance between Tom and Julie, and even the Wendell situation, it never feels like there’s much action between these characters.  There are a few twists, and even though I liked them well enough in the context of the film, there’s no big surprises to be had here.

The film feels like it’s constructed of a series of favors, what with all the stunt casting cameos scattered throughout, which includes brief moments with Andy Dick, Ted Raimi, Robert Rodriguez, hell, even Diamond Dallas Page turns up for a few minutes as an unnamed producer who threatens Tom in a bar when he happens to run into Morgan later in the film.  I would also say that the film does look good, as the IMDB tells me it was shot in only 11 days fro around $100,000, so for a small quickie film, Eckardt has done pretty well for himself.

High Hopes arrives on DVD featuring a commentary in which Eckardt and Gambrell that gives some behind the scenes details of the production of the film, and a handful of Lion’s Gate trailers to round out the disc.

This movie wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything that just blew me away either; I’d say give it a rental if you’re a fan of the talent involved, but otherwise you might be able to give this one a pass.

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