Backseat

Ben (Rob Bogue) has no job and a sexpot girlfriend (Aubrey Dollar) who wants to see other people; Colton (Josh Alexander, who scripted) just blew his latest acting audition by baring his balls unbidden. This being a picaresque indie buddy-movie, they do what any two unemployed guys without money or women would do: hit the road for Montreal to meet Donald Sutherland, toting (unbeknownst to Ben) a cache of coke. Bruce Van Dusen's 2005 comedy plots a meandering course due north without locating a word of truth—not the predigested riffing (including the old I'm-not-gay-I-just-like-Barbra-Streisand kneeslapper); not the seasoned stripper (Helen Coxe, hard-bitten and hot) who asks the hero to put his hands on her; not Ben's Chow Yun-Fat sangfroid during the requisite gun-waving climax. But as a paranoid nerd and his mute text-messaging chum, Mark Rosenthal and Will Janowitz streak through the movie like off-brand bottle rockets. Alas for Backseat, their characters aren't driving.