BURYING YASMEEN (2019)

BURYING YASMEEN (2019)

Tagline: A Post-Mortem Love Story

(Drama, Wandering Around In The Desert, Trying To Do The Right Thing For The Wrong Reasons) [R]

Note: This movie never got an MPAA rating, but it would have landed an [R} due to language.

This storyline revolves around Jason whose ex-wife Yasmeen has passed away. He believes he needs to deliver her wedding ring to her open-casket funeral to gain closure after losing his one true love. This will involve embarking on a road trip. Meanwhile, his friend Mike finds out his girlfriend Shannon is pregnant. His solution for that is to run away, and going on the road trip with Jason is the perfect cover. 

First off, this movie is not likely to be something you will see unless you have Paramount +. I don’t think this indie film was even released in theaters, but if I am wrong on that, it’s not that big a deal. The film also only has 1 review on IMDb and it’s not from me. The reviewer gave it a 10 out of 10, but the overall rating currently is a more reasonable but annoying 5.3. Just say it’s a 5 or 6 IMDb, why do you have to split hairs? Why? Okay – now that I am done talking to a website, let’s get to the review.

This movie is for some reason touted as a comedy, but I really didn’t find there to be any humor in it. Mike is a terrible person for leaving Shannon behind and because of this; it’s hard to find anything he does in his weird sexual manifestations that is even remotely humorous. Yes, we do get some character growth here, but I was so pissed at his character I didn’t care. I was pretty much rooting for Mike to get eaten by a giant Gila monster, but no…the writers couldn’t even give us that. Mike is played by Mike Langer who is actually a good actor and might be best known for producing a Kevin Hart mini-series on Netflix. Oddly this isn’t the only series where Kevin Hart just seems to be totally focused on himself. He is also in a new series for Amazon called DIE HART. Yeah, you read that right. Anyway, Langer isn’t the problem here, his acting was good as was Jason Lott who plays Jason. Lott’s big claim to fame was a very short stint on “Days Of Our Lives”, but he is a good actor. His character Jason in this is aloof, but not agonizing like Mike is. 

Most of the film revolves around Mike and Jason, but we do get some other characters thrown into this. Jason finds out something about Mike that strains the relationship between the two, which helps move the plot along, but it’s pretty sad. The other thing that helps move the plot along is that Jason runs into a girl that has high-functioning Asperger syndrome and is just an absolute gem. By that, I mean that Zannah is the type of person anyone “would” want to be around. She’s awesome. Oh yeah, I don’t say Asperger syndrome to offend anyone it’s in the script itself. They have grouped people with Asperger syndrome into the same diagnosis group as Autism Spectrum Disorder. It’s possible this happens after the script was written. Zannah is played by Niki Koss who just kills this role. Her other big movie was SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. The other main cast member was Elena Tovar who plays Shannon. Elena is sort of wasted in this and given very little screen time. She’s also a great actress and is most famous for the show “Designated Survivor”.  You might be seeing a trend here. The cast wasn’t the problem. The problem is that this is another script that feels like it should have gone somewhere it didn’t. The middle of the movie just screams that they really didn’t have a plan past the beginning and the end because it’s filled with weird day visions and crap like that. 

What worked well with this thing is the individual performances and a gag where they thought they killed an animal on the road and it just keep living as they are towing it around in their car for large portions of the movie. 

Directorially there is nothing special here, and the story feels like it’s borrowed from some other films, but it’s not a bad movie if you like quirky stuff that isn’t over-the-top crass. This one is just medium crass. Again, outside of one or two scenes, this movie isn’t funny. Not unless you consider the humor level of C-SPAN as worth a “comedy” classification. 

This thing gets a 4 out of 7 from me. Zannah by herself is worth watching this movie at least once. The ending though is somehow about the least satisfying ending they could possibly have come up with. I can't recommend buying this though so unless you have a way to stream it or rent it, I wouldn't bother. 

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