Tran Quoc Bao is a very talented filmmaker who I first was introduced to with his short “Bookie” which was a pretty good neo-noir crime thriller. The only reservation I had with this is that Bao has potential to stage a truly exciting feature length thriller here and whether it’s about the budget or the capabilities to do so, I would love to see this eventually made in to a full length mystery that could fully realize the talents of the entire production crew. “Black Coffee” is a film that aspires to take a page from the Hitchcock book of filmmaking.
Bao comprises a movie that is a very interesting and tense thriller that involves intrigue, deception, and a story that is worthy of a feature length film if Bao ever got the chance to direct it. Quite simply, Bao never pads the film and gets to the point of the matter. David is a local politician who happens to have had a steamy affair with a local woman named Natalie who works at the Chicka Latte shop. What he doesn’t know is that his wife Melissa is having an affair with her too and now the duo are planning to blackmail David and take him for every penny that they can. Bao’s film is very taut with some masterful photography that amps up the suspense with every passing minute.
Shot in black and white, Bao evokes the crime genre classics of the past with a plot that our antagonist David can’t possibly get out of. Putting him in to a corner we’re left rooting for him in spite of his sins, and the entire film revolves around three rather slimy individuals trying to outdo one another and save their own hides. There are many indicators that Bao is attempting to tap the crime genre with some very well shot sequences including the love scene between David’s conspirators, and big confrontation in the tower in the climax. The performances are rather good as Yuji Okumoto portrays a rather pathetic individual forced in to an affair and a plot that he is unaware of and the madness that ensues with his character is quite gripping.
Bao is never one to pull for our sympathies and instead just asks us to sit back and wait to see which of these characters will edge each other out in the end. Melissa Roberts and Nina Carduner are absolutely insanely gorgeous and yet quite despicable as this scheming set of lovers looking to bring down their male nemesis and deprive him of his dignity and career in exchange for some rather shifty ulterior motives. In the end Bao thankfully never cops out and serves us a final scene that declares who the losers and who the winners are. That is, of course, left up to us to decide Bao folds on yet another truly good short film. I saw it twice and frankly it’s one of the sharper short thrillers I’ve seen in a while. With a memorable cast, great direction, and a plot worthy of becoming a classic, “Black Coffee” is most definitely worth looking for.