Cashback - Film Review

Craftily crafting a full-length slacker-com around his Oscar-nommed 2004 short, photographer-turned-director Sean Ellis ingeniously disproves the adage that good things come in small packages. True, the best moments in this story of an insomniac art student (Sean Biggerstaff) who finds unexpected inspiration working the graveyard shift at his local megamart were all there in the original. But that’s not to say the additions lack charm, be they Michelle Ryan’s cameo as the morose hero’s ex or checkout chick Emilia Fox’s fantasy life as a pole-dancing stripper. It’s Bigger-staff’s own erotic reveries that you’ll remember, though, Ellis filling his gorgeous widescreen compositions with enough naked totty to rival a porno. With visuals this striking, you have to wonder why he relies so heavily elsewhere on laddish farce and droning voiceover.