The bawdy lowbrow comedy The Go-Getters centers on the antics of two almost lovable losers who go to absurd lengths to avoid making an honest dollar. We meet Owen (Aaron Abrams) when, sleeping in an alley, he is awakened by being pissed on. Soon Lacie (Tommie-Amber Pirie) enters the movie, lying in a fetal position on a restroom floor, vomiting on Owen’s shoes.
The two are denizens of a dive bar owned by Owen’s brother. Owen is a hop-head whose gift is stealing his brother’s merchandise. Lacie is a pill-popping hooker whose pimp operates out of a booth in the bar; the pimp says that his Blockbuster card is worth more than Lacie’s, uh, charms. Lacie’s five-dollar hand job is so inept that one john fakes a male orgasm to get it over with.
These two are utterly base, venal and addiction-driven, which drives a comedy one might describe as a light look at substance abuse. Hitting bottom, of course, is entirely individual. These two have long since zoomed below what most of us would consider the bottom. There’s really seems to be no limit to how low they’ll go.
The humor comes from their continual scheming to get something for nothing – or nothing except increasing loss of dignity. The Go-Getters works as an absurdist exploration of an addict’s unceasing need to place his or her need above the interests of anyone else. This comes across most effectively in a very funny scene where a taxi driver forces them to pay their fare, and each’s sense of depraved self-interest is revealed.
The Go-Getters‘ world premiere will be at Cinequest.