The battle between artiste and critic had long been raging by the time English playwright, Robert Green, criticized the work of a promising newcomer named William Shakespeare in the late 16th century, writing:

“…for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.”

Not even the Bard of Avon, the preeminent dramatist and poet of the English language, was immune from the wrath of the critic’s pen. Every great artist in history has been subject to the brutality of the critical gauntlet.  Film, with is broad appeal and 21st century cultural relevance, is especially saturated with critical voices.   Until the late 1990s, however, authoritative, critical analysis of a work of cinema was largely restricted to a handful of widely circulated daily newspapers and nationally televised review programs like “At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.”  Now, thanks to the World Wide Web, any shlub with 10 bucks and a lot of free time can write a low-brow, profanity-laced, grammatically-challenged analysis of the latest blockbuster and potentially reach an audience of millions.  With such a dramatic shift in power it’s not inconceivable that a powerful Hollywood director might feel a little slighted when his film is trashed by a pimple-popping nobody with a website–especially when that analysis is affecting box office grosses. Sure, Michael Bay may feel upset that New York Times critic, A.O. Scott, condemned his movie, but at least Scott is a respected authority on the matter.  The same condemnation from somebody like, oh I don’t know, Harry Knowles, may not sit quite as well with said mountainous Hollywood ego.

This interplay between traditional power and unlikely, emerging power is at the core of “Spoiler Alert,” writer/director, David Rakowiecki’s debut feature.  Brad Zuhl (Daniel Bartkewicz) is a naive, obsessive, idealistic but cocky internet film review mogul that runs The Geek-Cave, a successful film geek website akin to Knowles’ Ain’t It Cool News, from his basement apartment.  He wields an unhealthy level of control over a flock of 30,000 like-minded geeks–enough to make or break limited releases and sometimes even impact box office numbers for wide releases.

Harrison Kane (Lars Stevens) is an iconic Hollywood director once known for his inventiveness and indomitable independent spirit, who has since descended into the cellar of “sell-outs” working only for a paycheck to support his extravagant, coke-snorting lifestyle. The Zuhl, as he fancies himself, is none too pleased with Kane’s recent lackluster efforts and obliterates what he perceives as a betrayal of trust between filmmaker and audience. Kane, desperate and believing it was The Zuhl’s unfairly disparaging reviews of his films that ruined his career, decides to pay The Geek-Cave a little visit–mafioso style.

Like Joel Schumacher’s 2002 effort, “Phone Booth,” the film makes use of only a single setting, taking place entirely in The Zuhl’s dank, wood-paneled, basement abode.  Such a bold decision does wonders for cost management, but poses an array of narrative issues.  Unless you’ve got a $150 million budget with $40 million of that dedicated to explosions and gratuitous car chases, holding an audience’s attention in today’s ADHD culture is no easy task.  But Rakowiecki’s script is relatively tight and compelling enough to keep the boredom and redundancy at bay.  Though, despite its admirably taught and well-paced structure much of the dialogue rings false.  A great actor can make any line sound poetic.  Likewise, a brilliant script can elevate a mediocre actor’s game.  “Spoiler Alert” has neither, but it does have a sense of purpose and some genuinely interesting ideas–more than the average blockbuster can say.

Director of photography, Chase Bowman, armed with his Panasonic HVX 200, expertly lends this tale of friendship, loyalty, betrayal, ideology vs. commercialism, and entitlement a stunning and calculated facade that beautifully matches and accentuates the core themes Rakowiecki presents in this balancing act of a film.

Ultimately, “Spoiler Alert’s” amalgam of strong ideas, technical competence, unpolished but promising writing, and passable but stock performances results in a refreshingly original and adroitly shot narrative that raises interesting questions, but betrays itself as the product of inexperience, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Stanley Kubrick’s debut feature, “Fear and Desire” (1953), similarly reaches for lofty goals but comes up markedly short.  And look how things turned out for Mr. Kubrick.

Score: (3/5)