Writer/director Jamie Sutor’s short film about freedom at any cost is paced like a speed bag drill and leaves the viewer exhausted. It has energy; I'll give it that. 

 

The premise involved a small crew robbing a pink lock box from a porno store. It’s their last job, and the pressure is on. They wear masks, swear heavily and plan poorly. It’s a quirky setup, and I wanted to learn a little bit more about them. The lead character, Wolf, waxes poetically about his situation, hoping to use the payout to sequester himself off to Florida, where he has lofty career goals that don’t involve crime. 

 

With the MacGuffin established, the gang of miscreants enter the store and subdue the apathetic clerk. They didn’t bank on the porno store’s unconventional security guard, a leather-clad walking fetish a la the gimp from Pulp Fiction. The filmmakers even dropped that reference in an almost obligatory fashion. 

 

The gang has their getaway car staged outside, with their driver watching a meta, low-budget Spanish lesson video, "Street Spanish with Hector Johnson," while she waits. I’m not sure the purpose of this, but it did provide a few laughs. 

 

The strengths of Hometown Boys lies in its dynamic urgency, as well as the colorful setting when the store’s overhead fluorescent lights shut off and are replaced with black lights. I won’t spoil the humor that accompanies a black light in an adult store; something tells me I don’t need to. The weakness is that at only 7 minutes, Hometown Boys has both too much and too little happening. It’s a robust setup for an actual feature film but doesn’t satisfy me for a complete story arc.