The story of a lowly intern working at a newspaper who gets the chance to follow up on a quirky human interest story. In article-writing-speak: Safety Not Guaranteed buries the lead, and buries it pretty damned good.
99 and 44/100th percent of the story is the fairly mundane business of tracking down leads, wasting time that should be spent tracking down leads, and wasting a bit more time getting wasted. Just as Moby Dick only shows up on the next to last page of Moby Dick, so too does Time Travel play a backseat role to the lives of the three losers covering the story.
I liked Safety Not Guaranteed, but I would have liked it better with about twenty minutes cut off the front end and twenty minutes added after the end. Imagine Back To The Future focusing entirely on the relationship between Doc Brown and Marty and the first scene in the mall parking lot taking place moments before the credits roll.
There were a few funny bits here and there and I liked all the actors. Like most movies the writing could have been a bit tighter. There were a few times when things were implied and it would have been better if they had been shown. I also had very little interest in the subplots with their let’s get laid goals. I guess I like a time travel movie to have a little more, well, time travel in it.
As far as independent movies go this is among the best I have seen, the story is not what I was expecting, but it does make sense. The characters act like people, for the most part, and not characters. The props and sets have the reality lacking in the big budget CGI films so popular these days. Even the much ado about nothing story isn’t all that bad-it has a beginning, middle, and end-even if that end leaves a bit to be desired.
Safety Not Guaranteed is a fun film.
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