The Target Shoots First (2000)

Best movie of this year hands down!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Chris Wilcha has made a small home movie with, it seems, deceit and bitterness as his guides. He paints a bunch of professionals who are minding their own business, trying to get their jobs done the best they can, as a bunch of morons. The unintended result is the depiction of Wilcha's insecurities, jealousy, and general sour grapes. What he doesn't understand is that not everyone in the corporate world is a sell-out, and not everyone who can't make a living is a noble artist. Is it really possible that besides Wilcha's boss Rick Hunt (the only good guy in the whole movie), no one at the company has both a brain AND a heart? Columbia House allowed Wilcha to aim his camera at the company every day, so it seems to me that they had nothing to hide. Wilcha obviously does, but wasn't successful.

The two things that separate 'The Target Shoots First' from the rest of the Cinema Verite pack are it's content and it's form: the content is basically an expanded, clever home video and it's form is well, home video. Christopher Wilcha takes his college graduation gift, a hi-8 video camcorder, and uses it to document his life in the corporate world at a job at Columbia House, the world's biggest mail-order Music distributor. His inner conflict of converting from being a college music scenester, to making choices at a clueless, corporate business, is well documented in the everyman's format of video. Not only was the format of the film do-it-yourself, but so was the struggle of the director during the course of the film, stopping at nothing to fight to make the most insignificant of changes at the all mighty juggernaut of a business that is Columbia House. What shows through the film, is a compassionate attempt to show the persistence of the working man, Christopher Wilcha and his band of colleagues against the evil empire that is constantly thwarting them. To put it musically, Wilcha 'Rages Against the Machine' in the most calm, cool and clever way ever to be chronicled in a film.

I really enjoyed this film when Chris Wilcha presented this movie to me and my class recently. It was a creative concept, well shot, and succeeded in finding what it was going for. Special kudos to Chris for editing that much footage into about an hour and a half long movie. ****, 10/10

Here's an interesting idea: Take the brand new Hi-8 camera your parents gave you upon college graduation with you to work EVERY DAY. Sounds ubsurd? Well that's just what Chris Wilcha did. In 1993 he took a job with mail order giant Columbia House, and recorded at least one thing every day! The viewer recieves an interesting and humorous look into the workings of a large company. Wilcha edits down the 200+ hours of aquired footage and puts it into this film. The film goes from funny to brilliant in one blink of an eye. If you're scared of non-narrative films, this one's sure to bring you around!