So when one approaches a made on video, mega-cheap independent title like Pizza The Movie, they naturally begin with expectations lower than a spec of sand riding along an ant's lower thorax. If the film manages even the most mediocre laughs, it suddenly starts its assent. If the writers and directors can craft a consistently clever character – or, saints be praised, TWO – it's fleas on a ground squirrel's tale time. In some ways, the best a no-budget laugh riot can hope for is a sedentary spot in a woodpecker's nest. It will never match the mainstream mega-hits clogging up the Cineplex. But Pizza The Movie manages a rare feat. It is a GOOD independent comedy with almost achievable delusions of grandeur. It is inconsistent, formulaic and occasionally forced. But it is also sweet, clever and very refreshing.

The DVD:
Kevin and Barry have been best friends forever. After high school, Kevin climbed into a dead end job at the library, while Barry makes his bucks delivering pizzas to the public. As they've aged, they've become mired in pop culture obsessions (video games, Ninjas) while never really connecting with the rest of the world. But when Kevin recalls a dream girl he had a crush on while a teenager, he focuses his hopes on a hot hookup. Turns out, Barry delivers pizza to the mystery Miss all the time, and has now started letting his "buddy" take the tasty Italian pies to her. Every time Kevin wants to talk to 'her', a.k.a. Valerie, he clams up. Now, she is returning to college and our lovelorn Romeo needs a way to woo her. Through some "illegal" activities, Barry learns that Valerie likes French food, Vanilla Ice (yes, the rapper) and something called molka. Hoping to impress her, Kevin makes plans to take her to the most expensive restaurant in town. The only problem is, the place cost $300 per couple and our pretend playboy is strapped for cash. The solution? Getting a job delivering pizzas. Sadly, Kevin is as horrible at transporting food as he is at getting a date from Valerie. It's up to Barry and a cute, if crass co-worker named Wendy to guide Kev through a successful stint as a delivery boy. Otherwise, he'll never be able to win over his fantasy fu...I mean, girl.

Nothing can quite prepare you for how disarming Pizza The Movie is. At first, it seems like this entire enterprise will be a downhill trek on a runaway tripe toboggan. Visions of a mid-80s sex farce, where a wayward pizza guy gets more than just 'tips' as he delivers his 'dough' comes crashing into your cranium. The imagination magnifies as you conceive of the pop song montage, where various and sundry hi-jinx are engaged in, all cut to a fast jive beat. You swallow hard while loading the DVD player, wondering when the obnoxious life lesson will unfold, that completely out of place pontification of new age nonsense about loving yourself, looking beneath the surface, or getting that booster shot of antibiotics before doing a little door to door bedhopping. Then, as the above average camerawork begins, as you witness the community theater cast, and just as you hear the first few stabs at humor, your spirit sinks. Damn, you think, here's another crappy comedy from some pretender who thinks his world view is as acute as Woody Allen, as corrupt as Kevin Smith and as complex as the Coen Brothers. Just my luck; I get to spend the next near two hours with this loquacious bozo. You soon understand that the movie really IS going to be about a dufus who pines away for a vaginal vision that doesn't even know he exists. You recognize that a little nutsack, and some education in the fine art of getting laid would do wonders to move along the narrative. And there seems to be this hyperactive heffalump of a roommate who is going to provide a running commentary during our hero's entire prance through the pitfalls of love. Oh JOY!

Actually, that final sentiment is pretty close to your lasting impressions of Pizza The Movie. This is a wonderful, witty little comedy that aims small and hits its targets with stellar regularity. Writer/Director Donald Gregory crafts a nice, natural ensemble piece about getting lost in that strange struggle between high school and adulthood, peppering the problems with sly pop culture references and several standout sequences. At the heart of this minor merriment are Craig Wisniewski and Jason Muzie (note to up and coming indie actors – changing your name is a GOOD thing). Playing long time friends Kevin and Barry, respectively, there is a sweet rapport between the men that implies emotional as well as historical attachment. Though Kevin is conceived as the one who's semi-successfully crawled out of the adolescent and partially plays in the adult world (though a job at the library with a horny, matronly supervisor isn't necessarily the career score of a lifetime), it's Barry who's most comfortable in this brave new bonanza. Both actors stay true to their tenets, Wisniewski giving Kevin the necessary awkward angst while Muzie makes monkey faces. Indeed, if there is an element threatening to overwhelm this entire production, it's the amazing Mr. Muz. Like Stephen Stucker from Airplane! or Delmar O'Donnell in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, Muzie's manchild Barry is one big boisterous balloon of unrepressed playfulness. Filled to overflowing with pop culture allusion (everything from The Simpsons to Star Wars) and utilizing a shrewd sense of self-deprecation to get his point across, he's the breakout element in Pizza The Movie, a clear-cut reason why anyone would want to spend nearly 2 hours with this unknown quantity. While the Wize is good, Muzie is GOD!

On the outskirts of the dynamic duo are the supporting players, a more or less successful gathering of archetypes and character sketches. Gregory knows that nothing kills comedy faster than dull or derivative ancillary factors, so everyone along the edges, from the pissed off pizza gal Wendy (expertly essayed by Daniela Mangialardo into a quaint, quality three-dimensional diva) to the ethically questionable Pizzeria owner, Alex (more than just an angry, ersatz goombah as played by Alex Adzioski). Even a minor minion like the strange stoner Josh resonates with personality and possibilities. Indeed, one of the main reasons why Pizza the Movie works is because Gregory constantly keeps us off our guard. We expect a big, bloated coach potato delivery guy to love video games and randomly quote characters from Lucas's lunatic space opera. But we couldn't imagine that its classic NES cartridges, not Playstation mania, that moves the bubbly Barry. Alex constantly threatens his employees with extinction, but it's not the Italian, but the RUSSIAN mafia who he feigns association with. And since this is a film based in the dynamic of delivery, we get a revolving set of crackpots with names like "Bitter Divorced Guy", "Trashy Woman" and "The Machiavellian Pizza Scamming Leader", bit players given a brief, boffo moment on screen before the movie motors on. It's these tiny tweaks, these moves away from the tried and true that turn this funny little farce into a memorable movie experience. While Wisniewski and Muzie are required to anchor the film, to give it the heart, soul and narrative drive, it's these decorative elements that really flesh out Pizza The Movie's low budget simplicity.

Mind you, not everything here is a stroke of simple genius. There are a couple of corrupt elements that just don't play fair with the rest of the realism rug rats in the cinematic playground. Musical montages hardly ever work well. They usually just help pad the running time while relying on cheap gags – or groan inducing gravitas – to suggest a kind of scenario shorthand. Instead of taking the time to find dialogue and situations that describe this inner emotional crisis, the director just cranks up the tunes and throws together a few random shots. So when Barry 'trains' Kevin to be a pizza delivery boy, the sequence is dull and routine. The jokes are obvious – what with nods to Rocky and The Karate Kid – and while it helps to get our hero in acceptable career shift mode, a few more face to face fracases with inventive customer characters would have worked twice as well. Gregory also relies on other tired comic crap, like drag and crotch kicks, to bolster his ballyhoo. These suddenly lowbrow moments stick out blatantly in this otherwise smart film. Then there is the entire Valerie angle. We never really learn enough about this mystery girl to embrace Kevin's insane obsession with her. She's not unattractive, but barely passes for the goddess of his personal fever dreams. Wisniewski is not skilled enough as a performer to pass off the basic, abrupt memories of high school puppy love as a real reason to muck up his existence. And when we finally meet her, Eva Conrad's interpretation of the fantasy female seems bland, not babe-a-licious. There is more to their story than Gregory gives us here and if we are supposed to cheer for their eventual togetherness, he doesn't supply us with enough real reasons to fear failure.

What this neophyte filmmaker does manage, though, is a thoroughly engaging, consistently clever example of independent cinema at its most unforced. We never feel that Pizza The Movie is fighting against itself to tell its story or make its points. Gregory believes in the power of his pen and the pliability of his performers to smooth over the rough spots. And he's right. Just when you think this film will flop, when a situation will slip into sitcom shtick, or a character crash into Clichéville, the director finds a way to save it. This means that Pizza The Movie maintains its own sense of internal integrity throughout, a circumstance that few first time features can claim. There is control in Gregory's camerawork, a fluidity to the editing that gives the film a fully realized feel. Most low budget movies mangle their intent by throwing in the managerial towel, allowing actors and issues to grow wildly out of hand. And since comedy is all about timing and temperament, chaos can quickly distort even the most amusing, measured farce. Gregory believes in a dynamic based in personality and problems, not obvious jokes and outlandish cartoon concepts. While there are flaws in his home made humoresque, elements that will mellow and mature as he makes more movies, Gregory can still take heart that, for the vast majority of its running time, Pizza The Movie is an inventive, infectious experience. It will skirt your expectations and surpass your production prejudices to become a simple, silly delight. While you'll never mistake it for some big budget mainstream amusement mess, this small, independent lark will definitely make you smile.

The Video:
Gregory is not a fancy filmmaker. He is not looking to craft a compositional style that is part pop art poem, part homage to fluid filmmakers of the past. Therefore, all we get from the 1.33:1 full frame transfer is direct from digital video professionalism. Lighting, when available, is expertly maintained and all of the tell tale issues involved with camcorder craft – flaring, bleeding, haloing – are absent. From the print position, color correction is nicely maintained (especially with all those REDS in the costume design) and the consistent contrast between shadow and light helps keep the details in check. While other amateur auteurs try to work the cinematic image like a canvas, Gregory is content to provide simple, salient moviemaking. Pizza The Movie is that much better for it.

The Audio:
If there is a technical flaw in Gregory's production paradigm, it's the use of unsigned, local Ohio bands (the movie was made in and around Cleveland) to bolster his movie's soundtrack. Presented in a Dolby Digital Stereo mix that overemphasizes the cockrocking, there is a lack of consistency in the volume levels that grows quite annoying over time. The dialogue is always clear and understandable, but whenever the backing booms across the speakers, everything in its aural path is drowned out. There is nothing wrong with the songs chosen or the acts featured (some are pretty good, actually), but the louder than bombs boundaries of the sonic schematic undermines some of the movie's merit.

The Extras:
One of the best parts of this DVD presentation is the attention to added content detail. We get two commentaries, a trailer, an audition reel, some deleted scenes and outtakes, along with a half hour 'Behind the Scenes' featurette. All of the 'making of' material is first rate. The documentary is offered in a very tongue in cheek style, the performers "putting on" for the camera while presenting tasty tidbits on the making of the movie. The outtakes showcase some of the difficulty the cast had with memory and the elements, and the deleted scenes are yet another in-joke on the audience (one is even a shot for shot recreation of the classic "reveal" from Fight Club). The commentaries are interesting, as they approach the film in two vastly divergent manners. The cast commentary is a lot like the featurette: there is more teasing and taunting than actual production details. The four main actors are present (Wisniewski, Muzie, Mangialardo and Adzioski) and shift between witty banter and actual statistics throughout the course of the alternative narrative track.

The so-called 'drunken' commentary is actually a drinking game between Wisniewski, Muzie and Adzioski. They start by chugging their drinks whenever someone says "buddy". Before too long, they are several sheets to the wind and cursing like sailors on shore leave. It's an interesting idea for a bonus feature, and while not as hilarious as other, similar sauce-inspired discussion (Cannibal: The Musical comes to mind), it is still a very fun, fascinating notion. Finally, we get a song-by-song breakdown of the music used in the film. There is a bit of biography, as well as a sonic sample for every tune. If it gets at least one thing right, Pizza The Movie knows how to present its DVD dynamics.

Final Thoughts:
Though its title suggests something far more fetid, Pizza The Movie is actually a mostly successful romantic comedy, with just a sprinkling of pop culture peculiarity to make the merriment that much more potent. Donald Gregory deserves a huge amount of credit for deciding that comedy - not physical abuse, sobering meditations on sexuality, or flashpoint familial issues – would make an engaging independent film. Humor is hard, and this newcomer appears to be up to the challenge. While its not the most consistent carnival of quips, and it has a few specifics that hamper the hilarity, this is a movie that is much better, and much more enjoyable than you'd expect. The path to proposed mainstream success is paved with hundreds of failed films, movies that can't quite match up to the director's vision or writer's imagination. And when it comes down to the delirious or dopey, everyone has his or her own ideas of what's witty. Pizza The Movie somehow manages to break through all those barriers, leapfrog the landfill of disappointment, and make a novel name for itself. Here's betting that Gregory has some manner of future in the film game. With a little more polish and a couple of productions worth of experience, he can challenge the masters of amusement.

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