A woman wakes up in the bed of a man she met the night before, only to find the corpse of a gangster downstairs in the mafia-based black comedy short Cactus.
Whilst a good few gangster movies will go down in history as some of the greatest pieces of cinematic storytelling ever, like The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2, Goodfellas, Scarface, Carlito’s Way, the genre has also merged with comedy many times in the past as well, as seen in Analyse This, The Family, Get Shorty, and The Freshman. Following in the footsteps of those latter titles is Katie Trubetsky’s short film Cactus.
Many have people have done it in the past, they have spent a night out drinking heavily, only to find themselves in a stranger’s bed the very next morning. Unlike most though, Ella (also played by Katie Trubetsky) wakes up in the luxurious home of a gangster called Tony (Juan Carlos Merino). Alone in the house, Ella walks downstairs, only to find the body of an unknown man, executed with a bullet hole in his forehead.
Any normal person would have run as fast as they could from the house without looking back, but Ella may not be a normal person. Lying on the sofa, Ella talks to the corpse like it’s her psychologist, airing some personal griefs. She soon has to hide though, as some of Tony’s employees visit the premises, unaware that she is in the house. When a couple of heavies do find her, hiding behind the sofa no leas, a shoot-out breaks out, shot in glorious slow motion whilst Dinah Washington’s What A Difference A Day Makes plays over the visuals. The same song also played over the opening titles, but Trubetsky’s decision to use the song whilst bullets are flying around the living room is rather inspired. It kind of reminded me of how John Woo chose Somewhere Over The Rainbow to play over a slow-motion shoot-out frenzy in his 80’s action flick Face-Off.
This isn’t the only use of a fantastic song in Cactus, Trubetsky also opts to use the classic Time Of The Season by The Zombies. While the song may have been used in many films before, recently in the horror movie The Conjuring, it is very much welcome here too. Both songs actually help to make the short movie seem much bigger than it actually is.
When Tony and his heavies return home to find Ella, she quickly plants a bug on her one-night-stand’s suit jacket before fleeing down the road wearing just a button-down shirt and underwear. Tony isn’t best pleased to find his house in that state his trigger-happy employees have left it, and he makes sure he sends a message regarding the display of disrespect.
Whilst Cactus is a short film, it doesn’t really give us a full story, and feels more like a precursor of a much bigger project. Is Ella working for a rival gang? What are her intentions? Will Tony catch up with her? There are a lot of unanswered questions, which makes me just want to know more, especially after I have just got invested in the characters and storyline.
The performances are all great, especially that of Katie Trubetsky. She is looking like a talent with some real potential. After all, She directed, starred in, co-scored, co-produced (along with Olha Emellyne Kaly), and wrote Cactus. That’s some achievement. Whilst the short is shot well by cinematographer Hajin Rhim, the abundant use of many mids and close-ups fails to give it a grander feel. If more time and been spent on perfecting the frame to accompany Trubetsky’s blocking, we could very well have something very special here. Of course, this is just an opinion and I enjoyed the film regardless.
Overall, Cactus is a decent short gangster comedy. Katie Trubetsky is certainly a name we will be looking out for in the future.
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