Three men argue about pills, politics and semantics.
GUT PUNCH is used with permission from Jon Ryan Sugimoto. Learn more at jonryanisdead.
Bodega owner Manny and a delivery man named Rex are re-stocking the store when Brooklyn resident Dan heads into the bodega, in search of probiotics to counteract the antibiotics he's taking for an illness.
But when Dan coughs a little too much, Manny wants to boot Dan out of the bodega. Dan resists, and soon he, Manny and Rex get into an argument with Dan over probiotics, prebiotics and antibiotics, each side making passionate but ill-informed points and spinning the discussion into increasingly absurd directions.
Directed and written by Jon Ryan Sugimoto, this amiable yet sharply witty short comedy hinges on the idea of a community hub, where people of all walks of life -- and differences of opinion -- converge, sharing opinions, rubbing elbows and sometimes one another wrong. But the film charts how a difference in opinion deteriorates into a strange melange of hearsay, misinformation and hilariously overconfident belief in ludicrousness, making the tenor of the conversation itself the object of satire and humor.
The visual approach of the film -- with slick and engaging camerawork, authentically urban look and feel and elegantly dynamic movement -- embeds viewers intimately in the everyday space of a New York bodega. Cluttered and colorful, it's the heartbeat of the neighborhood, presided over by an owner who is familiar with many of the neighborhood denizens and aided by a colorful cast of employees. They all engage in careworn, friendly banter, rendered in sharp, witty dialogue that has a keen ear for character, irony and sarcasm.
The owner's bodega is like his kingdom, and he asserts his authority when Dan comes in, looking for probiotics to counteract the antibiotics he's taking. This leads to a funny but heated discussion about probiotics, antibiotics and more, one that will sound familiar to anyone who's ever read the comments section on any medical science post on Facebook. Each side is convinced of their rightness (and the other side's wrongness), leading to some vehement and humorous clashes.
The overall cast, led by actors Joe List, Greer Barnes and Radel Ortiz, captures the gruff yet outgoing specificity of New Yorkers, bringing to life the controlled chaos of the film's superb writing. Well-paced and always moving forward, it captures the way that misinformation pops up in and out of daily interactions, informing decisions and the way we treat one another. Dan and the bodega crew may be arguing over semantics, but they're really slugging it out over who gets to decide what's true -- and by proxy, what matters. But the result, as we watch an argument get even more ridiculous with each beat, is confusion for everyone.
Street-smart, excellently crafted and well-written, GUT PUNCH tangentially evokes how the recent global pandemic has changed the way we interact with neighbors, and how a cough or a sneeze can become a cause for alarm. It also is a lighthearted yet sharply satirical look at how we've lost the common ground (and sense) of everyday knowledge and logic, and how without this foundation, chaos ensues, where no one believes what the other says and the facts get lost in a growing thicket of nonsense. Being a comedy, it ends on a funny note that allows the truth, however messy and embarrassing it is, to prevail -- although just barely.