You could easily be forgiven for mistaking Who Needs Enemies for a film from a larger studio, instead of its more humble indie roots; an impressive feat by no stretch of the imagination. While some pacing issues and choices in shooting style do seem out-of-place at times, these small bits are lessened by some pretty heavy performances by a number of the cast members, most notable being Ian Pirie. That is not to say that Who Needs Enemies is a great film, more an average film that’s propped up by the acting of a select few.
What we are given is a tale of Tom Sheridan (Ian Pirie) who agrees to let his best friend of many years (Michael Mckell) use his strip club for a private party. Tom quickly ends up discovering that this party, hosted for a number of wealthy elite, was set up to provide child prostitutes to those invited. Disgusted, Tom takes a number of photos that he secretly had taken and threatens to out Ian to his wife and to the world. This of course leads to the bulk of the film involving these former friends trying to silence or expose the other.
Nothing all that fancy here, but it’s in the way the film is structured that will either leave you disjointed and confused, or excited about what comes next and where/when it fits into the story. Who Needs Enemies is given to us in eight parts all of which are titled with some significance to the character, or characters involved in it. Many of these are shown out-of-order with the viewer getting a shoot near the tail end of the movie as our first scene. More often than not, a major plot point will happen out of the blue and we spend the rest of the chapter building back to that point before moving on. It’s an interesting choice, but one that may turn away many people with all the jumping around. Also, for a movie that runs just slightly under ninety minutes there does seem to be a great deal of filler, so much so that my viewing partner yelled “Move it along already!” on more than one occasion. Some of the chapters are fantastic, with some stellar performances, but many don’t have enough of an impact, especially early on to keep you wholly invested in the film.
There is so much more just under the surface to this film that it just can’t get to. This is Peter Stylanou’s first film and one done on a very limited budget, and for that it is pretty impressive. I just really felt the project, as a whole, would have benefitted from a shorter runtime and a tighter focus on the actors themselves, and less on set pieces and unnecessary shaky cam footage. While it’s commendable that the director chose to play down the child prostitution angle, everything is done in blurry cam showing nothing questionable, it ends up leaving less of an impact on the viewer. The subject matter makes Who Needs Enemies a controversial film, but it quickly just ends up feeling more of a tool to motivate characters and not something of real emotional value that the viewer can be invested in. On the other hand you have the women in the film, three all together, who are treated like they were written by someone who has never known a woman in their entire life. Again, they end up being abused and tortured simply to give motivation, if they didn’t have enough as it was with the touchy subject matter, to the male leads and only appear on camera when they are being abused.
In the end Who Needs Enemies is a decent indie crime flick with some standout performances, but the use of its flash-forward flash-backward styling coupled with a lot of unnecessary padding make for an average overall film without really resonating with the viewer.
Directed by: Peter Stylianou
With: Michael McKell,
Ian Pirie,
Emma Barton,
Kris Johnson
Running time: 90 minutes
Parent’s guide: R (violence, adult themes)
Available on: DVD
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