Jerry, an ordinary immigrant dad, retired in Orlando, is recruited to be an undercover agent for the Chinese police. Jerry’s family recreates the events on film and his three sons discover a darker truth. True crime meets spy thriller in this genre-bending docufiction hybrid about an immigrant’s search for the American dream. A Slamdance Film Festival Grand Jury and Audience Award winner.
I’m all one for experimental cinema, but, in the end, the experiment has to work. Unfortunately, however, that’s where this debut feature from writer-director Law Chen (primarily the creator of film shorts and music videos) sorely misses the mark. Based on a true story whose very soundness is somewhat called into question (as demonstrably observed in the picture’s opening credits), this “fictionalized documentary” about retiree Jerry Liu (portrayed here by his real-life counterpart, amateur actor-writer Jerry Hsu) tells the story of how this hard-working but naïve Chinese immigrant living in Orlando was scammed out of his life savings by conmen posing as police officers from Shanghai investigating a supposed international money laundering scheme. The twist here, though, is how this regrettable incident unexpectedly led Jerry to fulfill his long-held dream of becoming a screenwriter/filmmaker, an aspiration he tinkered with as an amateur in his younger days with his wife and three sons (who appear as themselves in this production). Hsu contends that he wanted to make this movie as a cautionary tale to warn other seniors how to protect themselves against scams like the one he fell for, primarily as a result of holding on too firmly to a belief in being overly trusting of others. It’s also something of an homage to the concept of it never being too late in life to start over, particularly when it comes to living out and fulfilling a personal dream. Yet, while both of those intentions are certainly laudable, their execution here leaves much to be desired with its awkward mix of documentarian-style filmmaking and odd attempts at fictionalization (at times verging on the surreal and even hinting at the emerging cognizance issues that Jerry was experiencing at the time of this incident). The result is a picture that doesn’t feel fully fleshed out (or thought out), a weird cross between home movies and an experimental arthouse project that ultimately comes across more like a film school assignment. It’s also difficult to determine how seriously the film takes itself, with an undercurrent of humor that doesn’t always feel appropriate given the troubling circumstances involved in this story. In the end, it’s not entirely clear what “Starring Jerry as Himself” was attempting to achieve, but the finished product definitely doesn’t feel like it attained its goal.