Michael "Champ" Jolly. I'm going to get his autograph now, while I can still find him behind the counter at his family liquor store.
Champ, as a comedian, is going to do for the Key West Bubba what Michael Richards (as "Kramer" on Seinfeld) did for a New York Jew: he's going to make him a celebrated national icon. It starts here, with a movie called "Square Grouper."
Square Grouper is a 120- minute digital film by Michael Marrero which makes its debut August 18 and 19 at Atlantic Shores. It plays like a shotgun marriage between "Reservoir Dogs" and the "Keystone Cops." I could easily see it burgeoning into a light-hearted, hard-cussing series of films titled Legends of the Bubbas.
"Grouper" is a story told around a domino table about Champ and Leo (Matt Bussone), two friends. Champ fulfills a fisherman's fantasy— he lands a "square grouper" (a floating bale of marijuana). He puts it in the back seat of a cab. When he tells the crazy cabbie to drive to a local bar, the driver takes off with the bale— leaving Champ standing in his dust.
Michael Marrero, 26, had already exploited Jolly's comedic abilities in his first film, the 60-minute "Southernmost Point," where Champ was a side dish to Ben Lowe"s starring role. In that 1998 first effort, Champ and five other young Bubbas— (Conch Bruddahs, for you Hawaiians) attempt to rob a jailed drug dealer's mom's home— with hilarious and unexpected results.
This time Champ is the main course, and he carries the show effortlessly. Champ is not for everyone, but neither is Jerry Lewis. The French loved Lewis, they love Homer Simpson, and in the very near future they are going to ADORE Champ. (He has Je ne sais quoi.) He is very nearly a fusion of Lewis and the fictitious Simpson.
Yet, he goes beyond cartoonish. Champ brought a tear of sympathy to my eye when sitting on the roof mournfully swilling beer out of a mug inscribed "Champ and Stella, drinking partners forever," after Stella has dumped him (and moments before he pitches the mug into the void, felling Stella's mom with it.)
He is the Transparent Conch, the young Bubba whose fantasies, hopes and fears are right out there and visible. I found it irresistible to relate to his character.
And, I was stunned at the courage he shows in offering himself up to the camera. (Maybe Marrero used roofies to get him to get stuck in a tree crotch, moon a basketball team, and go down on a transvestite?) These are the last acts of someone who has nothing to lose, and who besides, is skipping town on Monday. No? These are not the career moves of a pater familias and responsible business owner who plans to stay for the duration. Yet that's what Jolly is in daily life.
Crazed Cabbie John Crawford could leave the Keys any time. Or, he could cut his hair and take out the eyebrow stud, and no one would recognize him. In real life he (like Champ) is a well-mannered lad and an accomplished "schmooser." I almost didn't recognize him in his cab-driver-from-hell role in "Square Grouper." His is the cab that transports the unaccompanied bale on its maiden voyage into Key West.
Like Champ, Crawford too is committed to his character to the hilt, and when he rants about his ambitions ("to be like Archie Bunker" and call a Spic a Spic) and his pet peeves (people who come to Key West because of its charm, then want to change everything) he is utterly convincing. You are almost sure you have taken this cab ride already.
Crawford, along with Southernmost Point alumnus Ron Gage, are credited with co-writing the story.
The marvelously sinister villain from Southernmost Point, Freddy Culpepper ("Boom Boom"), reappears in this film as the drug smuggling magnate "Mojo." A hilarious hyper gap-toothed Jace Thompson plays Champ as a little kid. Matt McNelley is "the Gimp," and actually stumbles around with a dislocated hip to play the part.
If Brandi Tufenkjian fails to convince as Stella, it"s only because one can"t imagine a girl that lovely and demure falling for a big looser like Champ. One would expect her to be with someone more suave, such as Picadillo (Jeremy Ashby) or even the sinister twins Ropa and Vieja (Danny Sanchez and Jason Barroso). Warning: the F-word is generously used throughout the film.
Hard to believe all this entertainment came out of the brain of just one Kid Bubba, Michael Marrero, who wrote, cast, directed and edited the film. Only two showings, at 9 p.m. on Aug. 18 and 19th. Tickets are $8 at the door.