FILM INFO:
A man develops a psycho-sexual attraction to a housewife while interviewing her about a triple homicide she committed.

WRITTEN BY: Ziyad Saadi
DIRECTED BY: Ziyad Saadi
GENRE: Short
TIME: 11 minutes

Hand Job
( 2015 )

Short Film Review

  So you're probably looking at my rating and thinking: Whoah. Only one star. The honest truth is that if I could have gone lower, I probably would have done so. You see reader, "Hand Job" isn't a bad film... the problem, is that it's not really a film at all. I realize some could argue this point but put simply, this is not a film from my perspective. Not a short film, not any kind of film by any standard. I wouldn't even go as far as calling this a school project. The description sounds interesting enough, but in reality, "Hand Job" is more or less a single shot consisting of... wait for it... hands! Look at the pic above. That's essentially the entire film. Ten or so minutes of hands. Close up, using a camera I would call inferior to a phone camera from ten years ago. Hell, even the audio is garbled and hard to understand. "Hand Job" plays like an interview from the 1980's, recorded with a cheap camcorder. I do assume that was the intention... but why? And, if you absolutely had to do it, you could have at least made sure we could clearly hear what was happening. The concept, sadly, could have been a great one. The execution made sure it wasn't.
  Up until the very last 45 seconds or so, all we see are hands, as I wrote above. Then, finally, things are changed up and feature a quick segment with a very cool scroll effect that I did find interesting. I should also add that when I write "changed up" I simply mean we get one (1) different shot. Better than none I guess.
  Another positive note? Aside from the scroll effect? I can say that the acting itself, up until later in the... video... was easy to believe; what you could hear anyhow. The climax, pun intended, felt very awkward and over the top. I'm really hard pressed to write anything more. The best looking part visually were the credits. That about sums the video up.
  After watching Ziyad Saadi's film "Hello, My Name Is Death", I'm left wondering where this one came from? The two pieces are so different, it's hard to believe the same person was involved in both.
As I wrote above, this just simply is not a film to me. At all. Aside from that, there's nothing visually to hold eyes on, and nothing in the audio to help either. "Hand Job", sadly, is just a collection of poor quality "hand" shots. Sure, a loose story exists, but when you can't even understand what the actors are saying, even that ends up lost in the wind.
-JT

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