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CATNAPPING (2009, feature, IndieFlix, runtime: 86 mins., director: Thorsten Chris Gritschke, trailer)

It’s not often I watch a European movie which has the capacity to crossover into the film-going mainstream. You know, a film that tells a story appealing not only to an overly-ponderous serious European crowd, but one which is willing to pony up real money to give the film a shot of breaking even and — G.od forbid — making a profit at the box office.

Yet Thomas Chris Gritschke‘s Catnapping is one clever little tale, and his protagonist Otto, played convincingly and hilariously by American actor Ian Lyons, is a leading anti-hero all of us can somehow relate to.

Set bizarrely in Brussels, Belgium, Europe’s sleepy capital with the decidedly infamous reputation for being Europe’s most mind-numbingly boring city, Otto is set to kickstart a ho-hum internship with his uncle Frank’s (played by the deadpanning Ted Fletcher) video-production company, StarVision. This is Otto’s big break into the local Belgian industrial video market. But poor Otto is a dude without a mission: early on, we’re left wondering why the hell he’s even in this do-nothing town in the first instance, and moreover, what exactly does he plan to do with this idiotic job, a position he appears completely unqualified for although no one seems to notice, least of all Frank?

Otto is a dreamer, but an idle one. For now, he’s content to merely coast along, sailing under the radar, happy to humor Frank during their joint editing sessions as the latter waxes poetically about the old days when he didn’t have to bust his butt to earn his daily nut. Now, as Franks recounts, SuperVision has to work twice as hard to land a marketing account, which is the reason why he’s decided to inject fresh talent in this moribund operation. Ah, so that’s why Otto’s here. Now it all makes sense. Or does it..?

Given that Otto has zero marketable skills, save for spinning some mighty convicing yarns and fibbing the pants off of everyone, can this be the end of our movie? Hardly.

Stuffed at the office and totally clusterfucked in his personal life, Otto dragoons his childhood buddy Lars (Ran Yaniv) into his plan to shoot and cut “the best industrial video ever!” O. cooks up a cockamamie scheme to break into Frank’s Fort Knox-like office to steal a mayonnaise-producing machine that promises to grant him and Lars precisely the corporate advantage they need to kickstart the money flow at the newly christened Atomium Productions. Yet the moment Otto dons his black balaclava and cracks the seal on Frank’s door with his crowbar is the very instant all hell breaks loose in Catnapping.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and during one of his frequent jaunts into town looking for a bit of excitement in this one-horse town, Otto takes notice of Maria (played by the ultra-charismatic Valérie Muzzi), an underachieving “Madame Pi-Pi” (Belgian washroom attendant) harboring distant dreams of becoming a sophisticated airline stewardess. Fed up with the pittance she earns cleaning human waste off of the latrines, she’s in desperate need of a new gig. Otto has the eye for her so he proceeds to do everything in his power, short of an outright bribe, during his subsequent visits to the toilet to concince her to go out with him. Yet Maria isn’t even budging. In fact, she couldn’t care less! So bribes her (yep!) with the promise of a sweet job offer as he overhears how Frank’s in search of additional hands-on-deck to help SuperVision process their new overflow after fortuitiously landing several hot accounts. When Maria hammers her interview, Otto’s apparently in like Flynn and yet another step in his plan falls into place. Or does it…?

Out of the blue, Frank shocks Otto with the recorded evidence of Otto’s earlier vandalism. Rather than can him on the spot, Frank oddly congratulates his nephew for his brilliant business coup in helping to land one of Frank’s more recalcitrant clients. Not knowing how exactly to react, Otto, aghast, thanks his uncle profusely, vowing to never attempt similar shenanigans again after fobbing Frank off on some silly excuse about testing the security procedures at the office. Frank buys it.

Back and forth, one thing after another, and Otto, in time, succeeds in doing what he does best, which is totally screw up. In short order, he loses his job at SuperVision, compromises his long-standing friendship with Lars after betraying his trust during one of their jobs, and finally destroys any chance he has whatsoever with Maria following a pair of otherwise promising passionate dates over drinks and sultry conversation. Unable to sink any lower, O. begs the assistance of his pot-smoking (and cuckolded) detective friend Karl (the all-too-funny Stefan Sattler) for some work to shatter his bordeom. Karl quickly puts Otto to work surveiling his ex-wife, while Otto uses this opportunity to enact another plan he has in mind, which is to win Maria back and regain his respectability with her, Lars, and Frank.

As for how he fares in this mission, well, that’s what you’ll have to catch the movie for.

What I enjoyed about this film?

Catnapping was unique in that it marked the first time in a while I’ve seen an all-European non-mainstream picture that I didn’t have the sudden urge to want to flip right off after being cheesed right off. The dialogues were snappy and well-penned and I, for one, appreciated the combination of European actors playing opposite American actors in a casting selection that’s not often attempted on the Continent. When’s the last time European actors were permitted to plainly be and sound just like themselves when starring opposite American ones? Think back now, really…

Gritschke does such a marvelous job with his casting that we’re locked into this story from the get-go. The actors do a stellar job in selling us on the plot, one which hardly seems contrived, and — like I said — rare in its compellingness for a European indie flick.

I found both Stefan Sattler and Valérie Muzzi to be extraordinary underdog finds who deserve a chance to portray roles in even larger productions. Sattler’s asides as Karl were so typically phlegmatically Belgian French — as per my personal experience — that I couldn’t help but admire him. Muzzi possessed that hard to find quality of being totally impossible to peg: where is this girl from? What does she sound like? And, haven’t I seen her before? As Maria, Muzzi was more than the girl-next-door and it’s so clear why Otto falls for her like a blathering fool. She’s so lovely and what a casting score for Gritschke.

After 86 minutes of viewing, the Brussels of Catnapping seems so much more beautiful than the city I’d personally experienced many years ago, and therein lies this film’s magic.

Another sensational IndieFlix find.

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