Movies this bad don’t often get released anymore, a circumstance that instantly raises the curiosity factor of All That I Need. Although the film’s national release is quite limited, it is still an impressive accomplishment considering its technical weaknesses and gross cynicism toward human nature. The story is about a pyramid scheme that goes awry, much to the surprise of every single character in the film. Writer-director Hergott also plays leading man James, the character who’s at the top of this particular pyramid. The film’s narrative structure is based on the various meetings of the pyramid clubbers, each gathering growing larger as the people on the bottom continue to bring in fresh blood. Hardly anyone can resist James’ pitch because, as the movie reveals time and again, we are all slaves to our greed. Furthermore, our greed is bottomless. Shot in mock documentary style, this low-budget movie’s conceit is that James has a camera crew following him for his school thesis project. Yet Hergott and DV cameraman Charlie Smith interpret this style as requiring the most jittery hand-held camerawork possible, which includes unsteady, unnecessary, and too-fast zooms and pans swishing past our faces with eyeball-straining constancy. The largely inexperienced acting crew – which grows to mob size by the final meetings – add little to the film’s supposedly vérité feel. The scenes seem like one improv session followed by another, which grow noisier and more out of control as the characters start speaking over one another, and incoherent camera zooms further confuse the situation. Crescendos of noise and pounding music become more frequent as the original club members go from gung ho participants to angry and betrayed stooges (or what James calls “fair-weather friends”). Shot around Newport Beach, Calif., it’s hard to believe that so many of the area’s super-affluent residents would fall for such a transparent scam, although I think James’ saving grace is supposed to be the fact that he totally believes in his investment plan. Otherwise, there are no likable or sympathetic characters in All That I Need, and you have to begin to wonder whether this whole movie production isn’t one more example of a shaky business scheme. By the time of the movie’s final coda, in which James delivers a redemptive monologue to the camera, you may also wonder whether All That I Need is some reformed sinner’s idea of a community-service penance. The ultimate meaningless lesson in James’ speech is “Don’t chase rainbows in your life. Chase dreams.” At its most perverse, All That I Need reminds one of that beloved maker of bad movies Ed Wood, whose passion for angora sweaters and dressing in women’s clothing led him to some of his most urgent and singular work. Substitute angora sweaters for pyramid schemes, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll find filmmaking conducted at its most passionate.
This article appears in December 2 • 2005.
