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UNBREAKABLE Meets HANCOCK With a Little Bit of HEROES Thrown

tvtv3 | Sorento, IL United States | 10/22/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Norman Neale (Perry Mucci) is the IT person at an up and rising corporation. He's kind of shy, gets nervous around women, doesn't drink very much, and collects comic books. He's a regular lonely, nerdy nice guy. While at work and videotaping a company softball game he notices that one of co-workers, Victor Ventura (David Ingram) seems to have super abilities. Norman decides to confront Victor about his suspicions, but Victor won't listen. It isn't until a tragic accident that Victor seems to come to his senses and seeks out Norman's assistance. Norman sees in the Victor the potential of the superhero he has always wanted to be and hopes that in training Victor he can become his sidekick. But Norman doesn't realize that everyone doesn't view the world so selflessly as he does.



SIDEKICK is an independent, low-budget superhero movie with a twist. If I was pitching the film to someone I would say that it's kind of like UNBREAKABLE mixed with HANCOCK and a little bit of the television series HEROES mixed in. Of course those movies and television show have a much larger budget than SIDEKICK and look very slick. But what SIDEKICK lacked in budget, it attempted to make up for in plot. The overarching structure of the film is quite interesting and the pacing of the movie is well focused. I don't want to give away the twists of the movie, but I was surprised how things turned out in the end. There were several places that the movie could have taken a completely different direction and followed the clichés, but instead it goes down a different path than expected offering something fresh and original. The acting isn't Oscar worthy, but it's not all that bad either. The core characters felt grounded and realistic, though there were times that I felt I was watching actors "acting" instead of just watching their characters.



SIDEKICK is a low-budget feature, so the production values aren't top-notch. However, if that doesn't bother you very much and you have an interest in seeing a superhero movie turned inside out, SIDEKICK is worth checking out. It's also got Danny Baldwin (the troublemaker of the Baldwin brothers) in a supporting role."