Calgary Underground Film Festival Review: “First Date”
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)
Mashing up buddy comedies, crime capers, teen romance comedies, and other influences, First Date is a fun, thrilling, and humorous debut feature from cowriters/codirectors Manuel Crosby and Darren Knapp. The film is rich with crackerjack performances and sharp dialogue.
High school student Mike (Tyson Brown) is goaded by his best friend Brett (Josh Fesler) into calling Mike’s longtime object of affection Kelsey (Shelby Duclos) to ask her for a date. The stumbling Mike is about to end the call without doing so when she asks him to hang out. He agrees and promises to pick her up — the problem is, he doesn’t own a car and his parents are leaving with the only family vehicle for a trip.
The ever-resourceful Brett suggests Mike scrape up $3,000 to buy a certain used car, but when Mike shows up at slick seller Dennis’ (Scott E. Noble) house, he gets a bait-and-switch pulled on him and gets stuck buying a 1965 Chrysler — big mistake, and not just because the car is a heap of junk. Some shady folks are after it and are about to complicate Mike’s night in a way that means he may never get to have that date with Kelsey.
So as not to spoil the wild ride that is First Date, I’ll stop with the plot points there, but suffice it to say that Mike is going to encounter a combination book club and gang of armed criminals led by The Captain (Jesse Janzen), two odd police officers (Nicole Barry and Samuel Ademola), and assorted other amusing characters.
Crosby and Knapp show a diverse range of influences in their film, including the 1980s teen romance comedies of John Hughes, the crime movies of Quentin Tarantino, the witty banter of Joel and Ethan Coen, and more, all the while giving off their own unique brand of storytelling. There’s plenty of gunfighting, car chases, and other elements viewers would expect from a crime or crime comedy film, but it’s the surprising situations in which Mike finds himself that really makes First Date feel special.
The directing duo does a fine job of pacing the proceedings, and they show a deft hand at creating engaging characters and writing intriguing dialogue for them. They are greatly assisted by a terrific cast, with Brown and Duclos having great chemistry together, and the rest of the cast, no matter how large or small the supporting role, shining as well.
First Date is highly recommended for movie fans of all stripes. It’s a thoroughly entertaining film that heralds the debuts of a solid new cowriting/codirecting team and several new, fresh on-screen faces.
First Date screens as part of the 18th Calgary Underground Film Festival, which runs online from April 23–May 2, 2021. For more information, visit https://www.calgaryundergroundfilm.org/.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Ghastly Grinning (ghastlygrinning.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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