Pretentious filmmaker-wanna-bes, the kind who quote Werner Herzog and reference John Ford, are insufferable and ripe for skewering. The indie “The Mentor,” a film within a film, features film obsessives from both sides of the camera who’ll go to any lengths to bring their dream to life.
It’s an enticing set up from writer-director Moez Solis and, at first, “The Mentor” seems rich with possibilities. But the movie shoots a lot of arrows at its big target. Some hit; most don’t. The movie is all over the place tonally, mixing satire, thriller and comedy, which is confusing and dilutes the movie’s strengths.
The central character, Nilah (Brandi Nicole Payne), is an aspiring screenwriter eager for a mentor to guide her through the minefield of moviemaking. She spies Claire Adams (Liz Sklar), an indie filmmaker known for artistic integrity, at a campus where she’s scheduled to accept an award. When Nilah pushes Claire out of the path of a speeding van, the filmmaker agrees to read Nilah’s script. These scenes hint at an interesting power dynamic in the making as Claire offers the brutally honest critique that Nilah’s script is crap.
But Solis plays with genre — Claire scoffs that she’d never make a genre movie — as the van reappears and Claire and Nilah are kidnapped and held in a abandoned building by a crew disguised in bird masks.
If the dynamic between Claire and Nilah held some promise, it quickly disintegrates with the unlikeable presence of Mr. Owl (Mike Bash), Mr. Raven (Michael James Kelly), Mrs. Hawk (Julie Lockfield), Mr. Emu (Santiago Rosas) and Mr. Pigeon (Corey Jackson), producers and filmmakers who want Claire (or at least her mother and benefactor) to pay a ransom so they can finish their movie. Led by the obnoxious Mr. Owl, these inept criminals squabble and engage in casual violence like a cut-rate “Reservoir Dogs.” There is the occasional zinger as they argue whether the ransom money should fund the film's sound or color correction (“It’s a visual medium!”)
But the rising body count is yet another tonal shift that sends “The Mentor” permanently adrift.
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