By:Antawn Salinas

Twitter: @OwlFeedAntawn

In the world of entertainment, there are many people who like to show their face and be in the spotlight. There are those few that want to make art but, keep themselves hidden underneath a helmet, behind the camera, or as a completely different character (Daft Punk is the first example I thought of). If you took that idea and put it in a film, you would probably get the 2014 dark comedy, Frank.

When Jon (played by Domhnall Gleeson) joins a local band called The Soronprfbs (they themselves don’t even know how to pronounce it), he meets Frank (played by Michael Fassbender), the lead singer of the band who wears a giant paper-mache mask, and is a little crazy.

The whole film is about the band’s many adventures, from creating an album to going to South by Southwest, all with interesting and hilarious outcomes.The plot for me was really hard to describe, which is one of the reasons why this movie is brilliant. The film starts off simple enough, but, there was not many points throughout the runtime where any of the plot points or jokes were predictable. The film will make you think it will go in one direction, but will go the other way. There’s not a whole lot to compare it to.

The other reason why this film is brilliant is because of Frank himself. He is the heart of the film. Michael Fassbender gives an amazing performance and has some of the best lines and scenes in the film. Throughout the whole film he’s wearing a helmet, which actually adds a lot to the comedy and charm of the film. While the film follows Domhnall Gleeson’s character, it’s about what his character and the other members of the band think of Frank.

Speaking of the other members, you have the rest of the band played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (welcome back to my review series), Scoot McNairy as the band’s manager, Carla Azar as the drummer, and Francois Civil as the guitar player.

All of them are hilarious side characters and act their parts well. My only complaint about the writing is while Maggie Gyllenhaal’s acting is good, her character can sometimes act like a *insert word I wish I could say, but I can’t because I’ll get in trouble here* for no reason.

One thing I haven’t brought up is while there is a ton of well-written comedy, there is also a lot of well-written drama as well. It mostly comes towards the end, but the acting with the writing as I’ve said before fits it perfectly. It makes for a great and fitting ending for the film.

Another thing is the music that the band makes is pretty good, and the practices that they have to make the music is one of the highlights of the film.
There are no perfect movies out there, and this is no exception. I had some problems with it, but they are minor nitpicks, like what I said earlier with Gyllenhaal’s character and that there are some plot points that go nowhere. Other than that, I really enjoyed Frank. It’s not like anything else that I’ve seen. And if you’re interested in it, you can check out the trailer right here and you can check it out on Netflix. Enjoy.