Comic Book Villains (R)
IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
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As usual, I wasn't sure quite where to put this review. I was thinking maybe "weird" or "seriocomedy." Perhaps calling it "quirky" is a bit kind, but I'm in the mood to be kind. Besides, I can sometimes seem to use "quirky" and "indie" almost (though not quite) interchangeably, and "indie" is probably the best category for this movie... albeit a category I don't technically have in my reviews. So whatevs. Um, I guess it's direct-to-DVD. Came out in 2002, but I didn't see it til 2013. It's got a pretty decent cast, I guess. And it's reasonably amusing. And crazy. And... it's hard for me to imagine comic book fans not liking it, though it's also hard for me to imagine anyone loving it.

It's narrated, to an extent, but a guy named Archie (DJ Qualls), who's always been bored living in his normal small town. His only escape is reading comic books, so of course he spends a lot of time hanging out at a comic shop run by a guy named Raymond (Donal Logue), who's become a friend of his. There's a rival comic shop in town run by a married couple named Norman (Michael Rapaport) and Judy (Natasha Lyonne), for whom comics are basically just a business, not a passion. For Ray, they're definitely a passion. Which is good, because he's barely scraping by. His shop is somewhat grittier than his rivals' shop, which may appeal to hard-core comics fans, but it's not exactly good for business. Anyway, there's this one guy named Conan who is a customer at both comic shops, and he spreads a rumor to the owners of both places, about a lifelong comic book collector who'd recently died, leaving behind a veritable treasure trove of classic comics, potentially worth a lot of money.

Norman and Judy try to convince the dead collector's mother, Mrs. Cresswell (Eileen Brennan), to sell her son's comic books to them, but she doesn't want to sell. She wants to keep them as a memento of her son. Ray also tries to get her to sell the comics to him, although he has no money, so it doesn't really matter that she's not selling. He even tries to strike a deal with Norman and Judy, but Judy has no interest in working with him (and she pretty much seems to control Norman). Meanwhile, Archie had started spending time with Mrs. Cresswell, at first to convince her to sell to Ray, but he soon becomes friends with her. Later, Ray decides to make a deal with this guy named Carter (Cary Elwes), who used to beat him up in high school. Carter has a bad reputation even now, so Ray wants him to help steal the comics. It is at this point that the comedy begins getting dark.

And I don't really want to spoil how it all turns out. But... it was definitely worth watching. Just remember, if you do watch it: in real life, most comic book shop owners are probably not foolish enough to do the sorts of things the ones in this movie did.