Butt Boy Review

A Serious Story About A Man And His…Fixation

By Jarred Kiel

Most of you are probably intrigued by the title alone, and the others have no interest based on the same principle. What I am here to tell you is that this story is nothing like what you think it is.

Unhappy with life, Chip Gutchell (writer and Director Taylor Cornack) longs for some sort of pleasure since he can’t get it from work or his marriage. After a routine colon check, Chip feels a sensation he’s never felt before, and that’s when the addiction starts.

He starts with small items around the house, but like a gateway drug they result in him finding bigger items, even living things like a dog and child.

Chip decides to go to AA to help suppress these compulsions and it helps for a short amount of years before he jumps back into his old ways.

Like every great noir, a grizzly detective enters the picture to solve said crimes and Russel Fox, Tyler Rice (“Tiny Cinemas”), fits the bill. He is forced onto a missing child case, which pushes him towards Chip and the movie really begins!

Now this all may sound like a parody, but the best thing this movie has going for it is that it plays everything serious. When Chip is going through the motions of shoving things up his butt, it reminded me of “New Jack City” when Chris Rock’s character Pookie is trying to not smoke Crack. No, the pun was not on purpose.

Cornack plays Chip with a dour personality and he wants you to root against him. He is the villain of his own story and Cornack makes sure you know it. Rice, on the other hand, plays Fox with a burst of energy that is much needed by the time he comes on screen. Also, both of these actors look like different versions of Ben Savage and Rider Strong from ‘Boy meets World’ fame, which made the movie a lot funnier to me. I kept thinking “What if Cory and Shawn were in this film? Cory is doing what with WHAT??”

Cornack and Rice are very fun together and you could tell they were having a blast with this film. They even have a “Heat” type moment at Chip’s work that’s very tongue-in-cheek.

There are some amusing moments for the supporting characters like Chief Lazarra’s, Brad Potts (“Water For Elephants”) movie synopsis speech to Fox but most of the other supporting characters don’t really do anything to help the movie.

The dark setting and cinematography by William Morean recall David Fincher’s classic “Zodiac”, which helps bring you into this world of mysteriousness.

Yes, I did make the horrible pun ‘ZodiAss’ while writing this article and I had to add it somewhere on here. Don’t hate me for this!

Even with the absurdity of this premise, I had a lot of fun watching this and hope Cornack and crew can come back and make another off-the-wall type film in the future.

Originally published at https://www.ocmoviereviews.com on April 18, 2020.