Verdict
Summary
Some of the gags work, but most of the time the movie sounds like cavemen grunting at each other in a language almost indecipherable to my ears. My opinion has softened for this movie over the years, and so I offer my hesitant and yet forgiving recommendation towards it.
Plot:
A modest hero rises in a dilapidated future where Beat-Beat Revelation is the ultimate sport.
Review:
The future is looking bleak with its sprawling trailer parks and thrift stores filling in for the abodes of the denizens of Frazier Park (The FP), and liquor has been outlawed, giving way to the free trade of meth and the drug of the minute. Language and comprehension have somehow corroded and nobody speaks proper English anymore, and “muthafucka” is basically how people great each other or insult each other depending on the temperature in the room. This could almost be OUR WORLD TODAY, and the heroes of this rural hellscape are freakish champions of Beat-Beat Revelation, a competitive videogame that involves dancing, split-second timing, and the very real possibility of death (187!). When his best friend gets 187-ed in a championship with L Dubba E (Lee Valmassy), modest hero JTRO (Jason Trost) is crushed and flies into a self-exiled journey quest where he spends a year in quiet contemplation until he’s called back into the Beat-Beat life to save Frazier Park from L Dubba E’s knuckle-dragging crew. JTRO’s gotta get himself back in shape and in dancing form again to defeat L Dubba E, but first he has to work his way up the circuit to gain street cred after being gone so long. Once he gets to the pads with L Dubba E, JTRO has been tried by fire and rain and will finally get his shot at redemption … and revenge.
When I saw The FP theatrically in 2012 (it was barely released in a special screening fashion at some AMC theaters, and I was one of three people in the auditorium), I absolutely despised it and even called out Jason Trost on social media (back when I was stupid enough to have a Facebook account) about how much his movie sucked. But I will also freely admit that after I saw the movie I bought the soundtrack on the film’s Drafthouse website, and I swear to you that I’ve probably listened to that soundtrack more than any other album I own, and I contacted the film’s composer George Holdcroft years ago to tell him how incredible his music is for the movie. It’s got such amazing music that it never gets old to my ears, so at least The FP has that going for it.
Fast-forward some more years, and I went to see FP2: Beats of Rage at a special screening (almost sold out) at a theater in Orange County, and while I didn’t hate it as much as the first film, I still thought that it was pretty terrible on the whole. Well, after almost a decade, I’ve just watched The FP again for the first time since that first theatrical screening, and I’m willing to forgive it quite a bit and my hatred towards it has pretty much dissipated, and it kind of amazes me, but I sort of enjoyed it this time, despite how stupid and profane it is. It made me laugh a few times out loud (rare, in general), and I appreciated the cinematography (by Brandon Trost), the lighting, the costumes, and the general cinematic approach to it, versus how cheap and ugly the sequels became. I didn’t even realize there was a part 3 and now a part 4 to this film. How did I miss that? Jason and Brandon Trost collaborated on the original, and it’s the “best” one simply because of how slick it looks and sounds. Holdcroft’s score is incredible. Some of the gags work, but most of the time the movie sounds like cavemen grunting at each other in a language almost indecipherable to my ears. My opinion has softened for this movie over the years, and so I offer my hesitant and yet forgiving recommendation towards it, and now I have to find and watch part 3 and 4.
After the Drafthouse label went under and the original DVD and Blu-ray went out of print, MVD picked up the rights to The FP, and the disc comes in a bare bones, but affordable release.
