Full disclosure: Multifaceted actor and director Beau Fowler (Chameleon) messaged me at some point late last year to discuss a certain shortfilm script he was working on. Being that I’m a New York City native, he took interest of my opinions regarding his own accentual delivery for a character he was building for this particular project and he even gave me a whiff of it late last year as we were chatting it up.
In short, I thought it was pretty good. Granted he had some issues over the script he wanted my input on; Interestingly, the draft he wrote included an action sequence although I honestly thought this was going to be something a bit more on the comedy drama front. Needless to say, I was curious as to what this would look like, and I honestly say that after screening the new shortfilm, Express Delivery, I’m pretty pleased with the result.
The current goal for Fowler right now is to hopefully turn this into a webseries with the help of backing and funding, and the proof of concept we get here does a nifty job of sampling for viewers. The simplistic setting and story sees our character, Swifty, inoculated with hands bound in the trunk of a black, discrete vehicle driven by a man known only as The Postman, played by Sonny Louis (Think Transporter but without the rules to break).
Upon pulling over into an underpass, the Postman opens the trunk and tosses the disoriented, disheveled Swifty onto the pavement right before acquainting themselves in a brief, reluctant exchange. Shortly, Swifty humbles himself before the driver in hopes for a cigarette, and before our suited wheelman can think fast, Swifty initiates a full-on brawl in an effort to free himself. The fight action we get is a free-for-all with hands, feet, grappling, comedic jabs, and the cunning uses of a single knife – all of which comprise the second half of this shortfilm which clocks in at about ten minutes with a surprise twist at the end.
Louis was great to see in the role of the Postman. I haven’t seen him principally in anything prior but he’s also amassed a sizeable credit listing of films and webseries he’s done in recent memory, including Jon M. Chu’s Now You See Me 2 and the forthcoming Justice League film opening in November. Furthermore and much like Fowler, his is a craft and practice that also speaks to how well you need to be as an actor even if you’re primarily a stunt professional as we observe our characters going back and forth between dialogue and action.
For now, with Ki Films well on their way with several projects including feature film development for a seperate title, Express Delivery packs just the punch that action fans crave, and with characters that continue to garner interest once the cuts and bruises are had; Who is the Postman? Who is Swifty? Why was he bound and tied in the trunk of a car? Where did these two accrue their fighting skills? Who is Miss Jackson? And why the ruse at the end?…These are things I’d like to know for further advancement in a series or something larger, and much to the credit of Fowler who continues to impress on both sides of the camera.
Visit Ki Films at their official website for more info on their endevaors.