SXSW Film Review: The Pez Outlaw

The Pez Outlaw is odd: odd characters, odd story, and the oddest of sweet confections. It’s part character study, part corporate-espionage thriller, and part exposition of a very specific flavor of candy-coated nerds.

The whole thing revolves around Steve Glew, a self-professed nobody from Michigan who found himself in a monotonous, dead-end job before falling into a pretty crazy story, most of it of his own doing. After starting off his collecting hobby with cereal boxes–Yes, that’s a thing–he found the surprisingly rabid world of PEZ. It makes sense that those miniature neck-dispensing items that come in a wide variety of characters would engender obsessives, but it turns out to be serious business. Those tiny pieces of plastic go for hundreds and even thousands of dollars. Steve was intrigued.

The story centers on the business behind the business. The American branch of the PEZ empire is just one slice of the pie, and it turns out the real magic happens in Eastern Europe. Once Glew discovers that factories behind the old Iron Curtain were the true source of the magic, he took off. With his son in tow, the two Midwesterners set about seeing if they could get their hands on some collectable commodities.

It’s important to picture Glew as he presented himself to the world. Big beard and ponytail. Constantly clutching a paper towel because of his OCD. Trench coat and awkward demeanor. It was a whole thing.

The big conflict comes when the powers that be at PEZ USA set out to destroy Glew and his enterprise of bringing thousands of rare dispensers over the border. The little guy might not always win, but boy does he go for a ride. Seeing how that journey affects Glew and his family is endearing. The most interesting character might end up being his wife Kathy, a sweet woman who stands by him throughout. Her dialogue must be subtitled because Parkinson’s has robbed her vocal cords of their power, but it just gives that much more weight to her words. The European cast of characters comes off like a rogues gallery of fictional characters, but for such a wild story, that’s just perfect.

The Pez Outlaw combines standard documentary interviews with reenactments (featuring Glew himself!) to tell a quirky tale of perseverance in the face of great obstacles.

Don’t miss our interview with Steve Glew, the infamous PEZ outlaw himself, “Candy and Contraband in The Pez Outlaw.” March 11.