Clapping hands for “Hands-On”

Hands On-The Hands Off Cut review by Jen Bush

A short film: Writer/Producer/Editor-Nicholas Kennedy

Directed by Nicholas Kennedy and Jason Llaguno

Nelson is a down on his luck struggling hand model.  Nothing goes right for this man.  Everybody he encounters is either annoyed by him or after him.  While he’s in the middle of shooting a watch commercial, he finds out that the one line he had is cut.  While he’s back in his apartment on the phone with a friend, we find out he’s seeing multiple therapists.  For most people, a pet fish is low maintenance and easy to keep.  Of course, for Nelson, tragedy strikes when his female fish devours all her young and then dies herself.  As if that’s not bad enough, thugs assault Nelson in his apartment because he owes someone money and they compromise his livelihood by slamming his hand with a meat tenderizer.  He attends his scheduled hand modeling shoot with a mangled hand and then goes on an acting audition.

There were many elements in this film that added up to it being a clever and funny dark comedy.  Shooting it in black and white drove home the pathos encompassing the main character.  Nelson is a bit of a loner, so it was funny when he had a heart to heart with his plant.  One of the funniest moments of the film was when he goes to his shoot with a mangled hand.  The director insists that he needs to film TWO hands so Nelson heads to the art department to see if they can lend a hand, no pun intended.  They scream and curse in shock when they see his hand but patch him up so he can proceed with the shoot.

Joshua Koehn was brilliant as Nelson.  He demonstrated a wide berth of talent ranging from deft handling of humor to garnering empathy like moments when he was discussing his beloved fish.  The real surprise came at the end of the film during his acting audition.  Let’s just say he defied expectation.  Benny Williams was spot on as the frantic and persnickety modeling director, complete with beret.  He was a standout in his two short scenes.

I must “hand” it to Nicholas Kennedy.  In short films you don’t get a lot of time to tell a fully realized, interesting and sometimes funny story.  The choices he made with the many hats that he wore resulted in a quality and entertaining short film.  His HANDiwork is undeniable.