2014
Starring Steven Patrick and John
Gaffney
Directed by Andy S McEwan
Broken Record is the story of two middle aged men who find a box
of old records (LPs) during a house clearance. The men act as if they have
found a bag of gold even though they have no special knowledge or interest in
vinyl. The records must be valuable because they are old. Steven Patrick and
John Gaffney both play their roles fairly straight and only occasionally slip
into farcical performance. Andy S McEwan
has made good little film here. I'm not in any way condescending to the movie
when I call it a good little film. The story is small, the aesthetic is small
and its nice little film. I have a feeling this is the exact film he
wanted to make.
The following is a small tangent that really has nothing to do
with the quality of the film I am reviewing:
This is the third Scottish short I watched this week and I
noticed something really strange about all three films… they all have pay
phones. This is more than likely just a cultural difference between Tucson
Arizona and Glasgow Scotland but I need to ask, are there still an abundance of
pay phones in Scotland? I couldn’t find a pay phone in Tucson if my life
depended on it. I’m not pointing this out in a disparaging manor just a
peculiar little difference.
Back to the film:
This is the first film from Andy S McEwan and he
certainly shows promise. This is a strong debut. He has made entertaining film. A great number
of first time directors are trying so hard to impress us that forget to
entertain us. I was happy to spend 11 minutes with these characters and would
gladly watch whatever this young filmmaker comes up with next.
Should you watch it? Yes. Where can you watch it?
Sadly the film is currently in competition and cannot be publicly shown. Andy
will update me when the film is made public again and I will post a link.
