Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Absolutely amazing

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Blistering performances.

Kabluey is a film that is charming while simultaneously being hopeless and leaving little-to-no optimism for the working/middle classes of Americans. Its bright disposition and sunlit environments give the aesthetics certainly more life than the characters have in them, but in the end, they live a sad, stale existence that will likely only get staler and increasingly more rough as time goes on. Even the ending doesn't make an effort to give us a silver lining. It's the kind of film that will make you dread the next morning, or even the forthcoming hours of the day, but will rub you on the back in hopes to give you some energy.The film is the brainchild of first time writer/director/actor Scott Prendergrast, who plays Salman, who goes to live with his sister-in-law Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) since her husband's term of duty in Iraq has just been extended. Salman gets the thankless role of being a caretaker to Leslie's demonic, degenerate children, who wreak havoc and cause chaos wherever they go. In the mix of this lurid situation, Salman accepts a job offering from Leslie, who works for BluNexion, an internet company facing an enormous decline in sales. The job comes with the vague title of "maintenance," and results in Salman having to work an untold amount of hours a day, for $6 and hour, wearing a featureless, bulky blue costume with an oversized-head on the side of a lonely country road. Why BluNexion's manager (Conchata Ferrell) believes the answer to their failing industry is to place a giant mascot on the side of a road maybe twenty cars pass on a day is benign but I can roll with it.When Salman is out of the costume, he lives a miserable existence that would push some to suicide. When Salman is in the costume, he brings a perplexing amount of joy to the people he encounters, especially children. There's not much playing he can do, however, when confined to the costume, due to his inflated-tube arms that can't even assist with passing out the flyers he must hand out to drum up business for the company.It seems unlikely and trivial, but Kabluey is a strong replication of the lack of excitement and happiness in many Americans' lives. Everyday Salman takes a bus full of eccentrics, one of them a woman who talks nonstop to a silent coworker, who just talks down about her when she isn't on the bus. The repetition of events may wear on viewers, which only means it would do the same in real life. I'm curious to know how many of them currently feel how Salman does in life.The amazing thing about the film is how easy it is achieves its morose state of being. When Salman discovers a heartbreaking secret Leslie is hiding, he, at first, doesn't seem so broken about it to do much. He still goes to work, gets paid, and takes care of the kids at night. Not until he sees the true predicament this is does he actually act. Salman is desensitized in a sector of the world which lacks all personality and life to the point where crucial, life-altering changes are viewed as frivolous until true thinking can be done.Prendergast writes and directs with pure confidence in the depth of his material, and his miserable acting is a plus too. There are times when I sincerely wanted to dive into Salman's head just to hear and see his motivations, thoughts, and internal processes of thinking since the character releases such little depth and color on-screen ("but what does he have left?" is the question). Here is a guy who can develop a career as a wonderful indie-character actor if he continues writing and pioneering great ideas like this one. Kabluey is a somber, effective take on the issue of drudgery in American life and what the so-called "American Dream" means in modern times. It's not often you think about characters this deeply long after a film concludes.Starring: Scott Prendergast, Lisa Kudrow, Conchata Ferrell, Teri Garr, and Christine Taylor. Directed by: Scott Prendergast.

Scott Prendergast wrote, directed and stars in "Kabluey!," an indie comedy that's as quirky and offbeat as its title."Friends"' Lisa Kudrow stars as Leslie, a small town woman whose husband has been off fighting in Iraq for a year and a half and whose two unruly sons are more than this harried, overstressed mom can reasonably cope with on her own. Enter Prendergast as Salman (like Salman Rushdie, he proudly proclaims), Leslie's ne'er-do-well but well-intentioned brother-in-law who comes to live with the family and ostensibly offer his assistance - though Salman may be in as much need of help as Leslie and the kids."Kabluey!" is distinguished primarily by its droll and understated visual humor, which comes primarily through the humiliating costume Salman is forced to don for his job delivering flyers advertising a flat-lining dot.com company to utterly uninterested and even dismissive passersby. Salman has been pretty much a failure his entire life, but he soon discovers that , even though he can lose himself and even take a proactive role by hiding his identity in the suit, it is ultimately only by shedding the costume that he can hope to grow up a bit and become a responsible, fully functioning adult."Kabluey!," like most idiosyncratic independent comedies, captures the capricious flakiness of the people and environs of small-town life and the special quality of alienation that seems to reside in such places - and no one is more faceless and alienated than Salman when he's stuck in that suit. Its talented cast also includes Terri Garr (Kudrow's real-life mother and perfect voice-match), Christine Taylor, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and "SNL" and "Portlandia"'s Chris Parnell.It's a nicely atmospheric look at post-9/11 America, one that mixes humor and pathos in roughly equal measure.

Scott Prendergast wrote, directed, and stars in this disheveled tale of a dejected 32-year-old sad-sack who goes to stay with his sister-in-law and two destructive little nephews after her soldier-husband has been deployed overseas; he earns his keep as a babysitter, and even gets a job handing out flyers while dressed in a foam-rubber costume, but time is running out for him becoming a useful member of this household. It's a thin basis for the plot of a feature film; Prendergast knows where he wants to take this story (and his character, in particular), but he chews up too much time getting us to that proverbial arc. There are brief moments in "Kabluey" that nail a certain type of irreverent, irrational humor, similar to that of TV's "Seinfeld". But, while portions of the film manage to be both funny and pathetic at once, some of the more outrageous vignettes are ugly or maliciously unfunny. There aren't enough layers here for the filmmaker to build upon--it's mostly all on one-note--and he isn't adept at bringing out different nuances in an actor's performance (although Lisa Kudrow certainly gives the picture some bite, practically the only bite in evidence). The grainy-colored cinematography exposes a low budget, cameos by famous friends are nothing but a distraction, and the fanciful final act (albeit much stronger than the first two-thirds of the film) is rather a cop-out. We probably wouldn't want the movie to end any other way, but there's something smug and uncomfortable with Prendergast putting a wistful face on all this. He has backed himself so far into a corner story-wise that even a few touching scenes near the finish-line aren't enough to make the project worthwhile. *1/2 from ****

The movie to me as the credits rolled was a smile and a nod. The heart warming light comedy with a psychology behaviorism aspect to it made me like this movie. As the movie progressed, it showed a semi-redundant life in two different lights (him in the suit/him out of the suit). The beginning came out with bursting out laughs and the movie soon progressed into a warm-hearted lesson. The fact of the comparisons you see with him in the suit and out of the suit will show mostly how people do adapt to who they are with and will give you a chuckle out of it.Slow,deep,methodical, and will probably keep you smile through the whole movie if you just take it as they want you too. I would give a watch :P