Fried Barry

If there was a plot for this movie, either I missed it or the director forgot to include it. After what I saw in Fried Barry, I'm inclined to think it's the latter.

This was sprinkled with sparse, nonsensical dialogue, which was mostly drug lingo and swear words, along with bizarre musings from passersby.

Each scenario just felt like a scene being filmed from a checklist. The only common thread between them was Barry. Other than that, it was a messy hodgepodge of sequences with goofy goings-on, little cause, and even less reason to care as it drags on.

I will say that visually, the filmmakers captured the essence of drug-induced calamity, with a smattering of clever camera tricks and lighting and such. Also, the Barry actor decently pulled off the fish-out-of-water, stranger-in-a-strange-land act pretty well.

Classified as a horror/comedy, but there's very little horror, and also very little humor. The alien angle is also sparingly present, really only at the beginning and end.

Overall, a C grade effort from me. 5/10 wouldn't watch again.

I was hoping for something a little more intense. The set-up was there for something truly anarchic but it just didn't quite pull it off. It wasn't too bad though, it just seemed to run out of steam very quickly.

Gary Green, the guy who plays Barry, could easily play an alien without needing any makeup. His face is fascinating and his expressions are endlessly entertaining. I could see him as a successful character actor.

Honestly, the synopsis sounded great. An addict and ne'er do well is abducted and his body is injected with an alien, who discovers life as a human and the experiences that involves. It sounded like either a stoner laff riot or a warm hearted fish out of water story. It was neither, and that disappointed me.

Gary Green plays Barry, who is introduced as a real bastard-drunk, abusive, bully, bad father and husband. This is expressed in about the first five minutes. Not wasting time, the filmmakers have him being lifted up into a spaceship faster than you can say PROBE, and after a rather strange but uninteresting and low budget transmutation, Barry is redeposited back, now quiet and wide eyed. He experiences lots of stuff and meets weird people and it goes from mildly amusing to serious to dark to crazy to huh?

I just really had trouble getting into it. The film felt much longer than it's runtime and I was really bored by the third act and started reading the reviews of the previous movie I'd just partially watched which I hated so much I gave up halfway through. It was one of those art house "horror" films that a lot of people thought was brilliant but it bored me to tears. What did they see that I didn't? Same thing here. I read the other reviews and there weren't a lot, but overall were much more impressed than I. What did they see that I didn't?

Well, in addition to hoping it would be the funny stoner laff riot option and being disappointed it wasn't, I really had a problem with the main protagonist. I think that first off, the introduction to him was so brief that the change from him to the alien just didn't seem all that stark. Then there's Green's performance. He's on screen the entire film so he has to carry it, and the majority of the time he has no lines. And since the alien shows almost no emotion, that's a heck of a challenge for an actor. Green's face kind of resembles a Halloween mask (sorry, mate), so even the rare change of eye reaction still looks about the same. I pictured a really good actor in the role. What would Daniel Day-Lewis do? Well, probably not this movie.

Truth be told, I really wanted to like this film. It sounded weird and different and I'm all for that. But I just came away with a feeling of, "So what?" I think the acting had a lot to do with it, although I liked the purple haired hooker. But the multiple plot holes (like, did NO ONE in the city see that giant spaceship??), the questionable actions of pretty much everyone and what the heck was the deal with those grocery store employees? It just didn't do it for me, and I grudgingly give it a 5.

I am not even comparing this to the Greasy Strangler as a movie, just referring to the title ... if anything they are both quite trashy as some would say, but in a different sense. This is quite episodic and I reckon some people who did do drugs, may feel some connection to some of the things happening here. Still it has to be noted, you should not try this at home. And even someone like me, who didn't do drugs (alcohol aside if you think it counts per definition), I could relate ... well understand may be the better word, what the main character goes through, to a degree.

Very well played by our lead and far out as some might say. But also completely odd and tough to follow. Also no story - just a few things to be aware of. This isn't anywhere near a "normal" film ... but if you let yourself into the world and the madness this depicts ... you can have some fun, with all the depravities you get to see. Or be entertained by them I should say ... fun isn't really ... well I guess you can laugh a lot, especially if you can distinguish and not compare this to your real life (hopefully) ... no pun intended

I didn't think it was a horror comedy in the sense I'm used to, but it wasn't an overly serious film either. It has some very weird and trippy moments that aren't going to be everyone's taste. Personally I had fun with it.

Most of the plot is odd, because the main character isn't driving the story. A lot of events tend to happen around him instead. And he is going along with whatever every one else is doing. Which works to some degree with the whole fish out of water, he is an alien inside a human body experiencing things for the first time.

The lead did pretty well with his physical comedy too.