Dick Dobson P.I. and the Case of the Kidnapped Cookies (2006) User Reviews

Brilliant Short

[cg90210 · 10/10 · 12 December 2008]

I was fortunate enough to catch a screening of 'Dick Dobson P.I.' at the Landcrab Film Festival, and I must say, I could not disagree with the previous reviewer more! The claims of poor sound quality must have been the version he was watching or the one that was broadcast on that night, as when we saw it (and every time I have seen it online since), the sound quality is very good (not to mention the quality of the music and vocal acting itself).

This is a very funny film - at the screening I was at there was huge laughter almost every other line, so to say it only has one good joke is rather curmudgeonly! I remember it even picked up awards that night specifically for its script and another for the best line in the festival (the 'cat pointing a gun..' one), so I guess it must be a case of different strokes for different folks! I agree that the film is a 'one-note' affair, but again, I think the point is being missed slightly by the reviewer - the plot with this film is DELIBERATELY generic, in order to sell the parody nature of the film, and to have the audience recognise the traditional film noir 'story beats' in what little running time it has to play with. The cleverness, and focus of the script is in its constant use of wordplay to back up and compliment the visual gags - something that I feel it succeeds very admirably at.

I very much enjoyed this film and would thoroughly encourage others to seek it out! Chris G, Swanage, UK

A simple one-gag affair

[bob the moo · 19 December 2008]

It was close to nap time when a pair of legs walked into the office of Dick Dobson, private investigator. Her talk of kidnapped cookies didn't interest him at first but ultimately he is a sucker for a beautiful girl and soon finds himself on a simple case that quickly gets more complex and dangerous than he planned.

The title tells you all you need to know because this short film is a spoof on the tough private detectives of the noir-ish genres but with kids and cookies instead of adults and Maltese falcons. It starts this way and this is just what it does. The gag is that the conventions of the genre (the bar, the aim of the case) are replaced by kiddie stuff while the presentation (lighting, narration, characters) remains the same. The problem with it is that it doesn't have much more to it than that unfortunately. Dalton's direction is very good and he does capture the feel of the genre in the look, feel and tone of the film but apart from one funny line (about the coke) there is not enough in his script to hold the interest for the whole running time. It is not terrible of course, just very one-note.

As a very quick short film it can just about carry this but for all his good work in other areas I found it hard to ignore the question of what might have been if Dalton had spent a bit more time expanding and improving on his script. The only other thing of note about the film is that the version broadcast recently on propeller had terrible sound quality (which had not affected other films shown at the same time). Not sure if it was this broadcast of it or what but it did make it very hard to listen to.