Shut Up and Shoot Me
DIR/WRI: Steen Agro • PROD: Paul Sherwood • DOP: Howard Smith • ED: Michal Lánsky • DES: Roman Chochola • CAST: Karel Roden, Andy Nyman, Anna Geislerová, Robert Polo

Shut Up and Shoot Me is an affable black comedy from Czech writer-director Steen Agro. It begins when Colin (Andy Nyman) is on holiday in Prague with his wife, who is unexpectedly crushed by a statue. Unable to handle life without her, he tries to kill himself, but can’t go through with it. Instead, he hires Pavel Zeman (Karel Roden), a local man who’s already working at several jobs in order to keep his wife in cosmetic luxury, to do the job for him. Pavel at first tries to fob him off, but the lure of money is too strong, and soon things get complicated, with all the wrong people dying and the two unwilling partners attracting the attention of a local gangster known as the Butcher of Prague.

This isn’t the world’s first suicide-related comedy, and it probably won’t be the last, but it’s quite clever in its little twists and turns. Some of the situations seem a little contrived, like when an old woman who’s seen them dispose of a body tries to blackmail them and Colin gets indignant – a little hypocritical in the circumstances, even bearing in mind the kind of character he’s supposed to be. But the leads gradually build up an entertaining rapport. Colin is a fairly standard anxious nebbish-y type, while Pavel is more down to earth, at first just trying to avoid having to deal with the Englishman or his situation. Actually, Pavel seems a bit heartless early on, and he also doesn’t seem to care when his wife has blown all of Colin’s money and he still hasn’t made good on their deal. He mostly just wants to be left alone, which is an understandable feeling, and it wouldn’t be a problem if Colin just seemed like a crank, but we’ve been with him from the beginning, and seen his wife die. However, as the pace picks up, this becomes less of an issue.

The film is only ninety minutes long, and the time doesn’t quite fly by, but it does have its moments. It’s nicely shot, with a contemporary soundtrack (along with having much of it in English, this is likely an attempt to appeal to a wide audience). It also displays a subtle suspicion of authority figures, as shown in an administrative screw-up with the wife’s remains and the fact that they never consider going to the police, which leads to a nicely subversive ending.  It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but it is well-made, well-written, and entertaining.

Tim Hanan
(Read biog here)

Rated TBC (see IFCO website for details)
Shut Up and Shoot Me is released on 28th December 2007
Shut Up and Shoot Me – Official website