Steve Pulaski Kabluey is a film that is charming while simultaneously being hopeless and leaving little-to-no optimism for the working/middle classes of Americans. Its bright disposition and sunlit environments give the aesthetics certainly more life than the characters have in them, but in the end, they live a sad, stale existence that will likely only get staler and increasingly more rough as time goes on. Even the ending doesn't make an effort to give us a silver lining. It's the kind of film that will make you dread the next morning, or even the forthcoming hours of the day, but will rub you on the back in hopes to give you some energy.The film is the brainchild of first time writer/director/actor Scott Prendergrast, who plays Salman, who goes to live with his sister-in-law Leslie (Lisa Kudrow) since her husband's term of duty in Iraq has just been extended. Salman gets the thankless role of being a caretaker to Leslie's demonic, degenerate children, who wreak havoc and cause chaos wherever they go. In the mix of this lurid situation, Salman accepts a job offering from Leslie, who works for BluNexion, an internet company facing an enormous decline in sales. The job comes with the vague title of "maintenance," and results in Salman having to work an untold amount of hours a day, for $6 and hour, wearing a featureless, bulky blue costume with an oversized-head on the side of a lonely country road. Why BluNexion's manager (Conchata Ferrell) believes the answer to their failing industry is to place a giant mascot on the side of a road maybe twenty cars pass on a day is benign but I can roll with it.When Salman is out of the costume, he lives a miserable existence that would push some to suicide. When Salman is in the costume, he brings a perplexing amount of joy to the people he encounters, especially children. There's not much playing he can do, however, when confined to the costume, due to his inflated-tube arms that can't even assist with passing out the flyers he must hand out to drum up business for the company.It seems unlikely and trivial, but Kabluey is a strong replication of the lack of excitement and happiness in many Americans' lives. Everyday Salman takes a bus full of eccentrics, one of them a woman who talks nonstop to a silent coworker, who just talks down about her when she isn't on the bus. The repetition of events may wear on viewers, which only means it would do the same in real life. I'm curious to know how many of them currently feel how Salman does in life.The amazing thing about the film is how easy it is achieves its morose state of being. When Salman discovers a heartbreaking secret Leslie is hiding, he, at first, doesn't seem so broken about it to do much. He still goes to work, gets paid, and takes care of the kids at night. Not until he sees the true predicament this is does he actually act. Salman is desensitized in a sector of the world which lacks all personality and life to the point where crucial, life-altering changes are viewed as frivolous until true thinking can be done.Prendergast writes and directs with pure confidence in the depth of his material, and his miserable acting is a plus too. There are times when I sincerely wanted to dive into Salman's head just to hear and see his motivations, thoughts, and internal processes of thinking since the character releases such little depth and color on-screen ("but what does he have left?" is the question). Here is a guy who can develop a career as a wonderful indie-character actor if he continues writing and pioneering great ideas like this one. Kabluey is a somber, effective take on the issue of drudgery in American life and what the so-called "American Dream" means in modern times. It's not often you think about characters this deeply long after a film concludes.Starring: Scott Prendergast, Lisa Kudrow, Conchata Ferrell, Teri Garr, and Christine Taylor. Directed by: Scott Prendergast.

Warren Drake Springer Just watched this again for the zillionth time, and it never gets old. I love every bit of it. I believe it shows modern alienation, that behind a mask you see people's true colors. That's how Salman saw how Leslie was having an affair with her boss, but her boss was also having an affair with that other woman from the bus, the one who talked the old lady's ear off. And when Teri Garr's character drove by in anger at Kabluey, but then asked Salman for the tin foil in the store, and he was frightened hahaha. It was funny in parts, but I felt the over all tone is that of a lonely melancholy, it is very sad :( Not many movies have such grace in deliverance as this does, especially with a low budget, independent movie. A+ definitely... this will stay in my top 10, top 5 even

Roland E. Zwick Scott Prendergast wrote, directed and stars in "Kabluey!," an indie comedy that's as quirky and offbeat as its title."Friends"' Lisa Kudrow stars as Leslie, a small town woman whose husband has been off fighting in Iraq for a year and a half and whose two unruly sons are more than this harried, overstressed mom can reasonably cope with on her own. Enter Prendergast as Salman (like Salman Rushdie, he proudly proclaims), Leslie's ne'er-do-well but well-intentioned brother-in-law who comes to live with the family and ostensibly offer his assistance - though Salman may be in as much need of help as Leslie and the kids."Kabluey!" is distinguished primarily by its droll and understated visual humor, which comes primarily through the humiliating costume Salman is forced to don for his job delivering flyers advertising a flat-lining dot.com company to utterly uninterested and even dismissive passersby. Salman has been pretty much a failure his entire life, but he soon discovers that , even though he can lose himself and even take a proactive role by hiding his identity in the suit, it is ultimately only by shedding the costume that he can hope to grow up a bit and become a responsible, fully functioning adult."Kabluey!," like most idiosyncratic independent comedies, captures the capricious flakiness of the people and environs of small-town life and the special quality of alienation that seems to reside in such places - and no one is more faceless and alienated than Salman when he's stuck in that suit. Its talented cast also includes Terri Garr (Kudrow's real-life mother and perfect voice-match), Christine Taylor, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and "SNL" and "Portlandia"'s Chris Parnell.It's a nicely atmospheric look at post-9/11 America, one that mixes humor and pathos in roughly equal measure.

mgconlan-1 I had really thought great slapstick comedy was a lost art, one that I'd have to go to DVD's of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd to experience. Then I saw "Kabluey." For the first half of the film I was laughing my head off, not only at the sheer outrageousness of it all but also at Scott Prendergast's brilliance at building gag on top of gag, making you laugh harder at each one until by the end of his "stack" you're literally screaming with joy. The second half slowed down a little but also proved that Prendergast could do pathos, and the ending is as heartbreaking as anything by Chaplin. There've been a few comedians in the modern era who showed they COULD have ranked with the stars of the past (Robin Williams, Jim Carrey), but Williams got stuck into too many overstuffed vehicles and Carrey seems to have been penalized by his audience every time he tried to reach beyond fart humor. Let's hope Scott Prendergast keeps making simple, unpretentious and utterly hilarious movies like this.