A Gritty Black-and-White Indie About Life on the Fringe

At one point in the new film recently given its international premiere at the Oldenburg Film Festival, the words “An Independent Picture by Jake Remington” appears onscreen. It’s an apt description of $$$, which is as micro-budget as a feature gets these days. Reminiscent of the works of Cassavetes and Scorsese in their earliest days, it’s exactly the sort of challenging effort the festival takes pride in showcasing.

While commercial prospects look bleak for the uncompromising effort running a mere 63 minutes, the film demonstrates that its director-screenwriter, whose sole previous credit is the 2013 feature The Romney Years, is a talent to watch.

Shot in gritty black-and-white video, the drama is about best friends Joe (Joe Sonnenblick) and Teo (Teo Babini), whose lives revolve around betting on horse races, poker games, and crime. When they get involved with a particularly unsavory character — referred to them by Teo’s father (Bobby Haha, whose name I desperately hope is real), who has a criminal past — it leads to fatal consequences including Joe finding himself in debt to the sort of people who don’t hesitate to use lethal methods to collect.

But the rudimentary and familiar-feeling storyline proves less interesting than the fully lived-in performances by its cast of non-professional actors, who make it easy to believe that they are playing versions of themselves (as the filmmaker states); and the vivid atmospherics of the real-life locations, including New York’s Belmont and Aqueduct racetracks, and the sort of urban diner you’d find yourself guiltily eating in at 3 in the morning.

Remington also displays a flair for the sort of pungent dialogue delivered in classic film noirs, although perhaps he doesn’t fully deserve the credit since it’s easy to believe that much of it was improvised by the actors. “34 years old, I’m still out here doing this dumb shit,” one of the characters laments with an undeniable air of verisimilitude. “They’re bred to run, and they’re bred to lose,” says another about race horses, while the sport itself is memorably described as “misery with pictures.”  

Its credits appearing onscreen after nearly a quarter of its running time has elapsed, the film features numerous striking stylistic touches, such as montages with photographs of its characters/actors at various times of their lives. The vérité-style approach rewardingly leads to lengthy but compelling sequences in which stable workers painstakingly tend to the horses, with one such scene featuring a memorable cut to blood being scrubbed off a floor as a result of a particularly violent episode.

As with Cassavetes, $$$ suffers from some aimless stretches, although unlike the works of that pioneering filmmaker the brief running time prevents too much tedium from settling in. It’s also true that these are not characters with whom you can particularly enjoy spending time. But they always feel painfully real, their desperation fairly dripping off the screen. In the Director’s Statement provided by the festival, Remington says that the film is “a love letter to NYC and the people who were born there.” If this is love, he’s got a funny way of showing it.