Cashback

"Cashback" is a weird hybrid: it wants to be an introspective relationship drama and a raucous sex comedy at the same time. It fails on both levels.

Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) is an art student who just broke up with his girlfriend of over two years. He laments his fate as only a self-absorbed young man can. His anguish is such that he is unable to sleep for four weeks. (Physically impossible? Sure. But how many chances do you get to rip off "Fight Club"?)

Stuck with a lot of extra time on his hands, Ben takes a job in a supermarket. He meets a pretty young cashier, they fall in love, they fall out of love, they reunite. Rinse, wash, repeat.

A film like this could fail out of blandness, but "Cashback" has more pretentious aims. Ben develops a supernatural power: the ability to stop time. This power is used to trot out every lame truism about time you've ever heard: you can't turn back the clock, you've got to live in the moment, and so on. Enlightened yet?

Ben first uses his power as only a horny artist can: to strip women naked and draw them. Everything you need to know about "Cashback" is that it takes this scene--which would be great for a porn film--and tries to pass it off as somehow insightful. Ben gives us some nonsense about how artists love the female form and women really want to be admired in this way. I must admit that I was unaware that women want to be treated as objects rather than people. Writer-director Sean Ellis actually wants us to believe this is his brain and not his libido talking.

Ellis does use some interesting techniques to seamlessly shift from flashbacks to present day sequences. It would be nice if he could use this technique to show us something worthwhile, as opposed to a recounting of the time Ben saw an exchange student naked.

There's nothing wrong with a movie about sex. There is something wrong, however, with movie that thinks that men wanting to strip women naked is somehow novel, revealing or funny.