I’ll watch any movie shot in Chicago. I’ve lived here nearly 30 years and seeing the city on screen makes me happy. It’s great when the movie is entertaining like The Fugitive, exciting like Thief, alternately inspiring and depressing like The Interrupters, or horrifying like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. These and dozens of other great films show off the city while also having a story to tell, but there are countless others set here, which, aside from their setting, don’t have much to recommend them. I’ve seen more bad movies set in Chicago than I can recall and expect to see many more before I’m done; I like this town that much.
If I have to pick a “winner” in my foray into Chicago-made low-budget fare, it has to be the aptly titled (either for its content or its audience) Fools (2016). This labyrinthine romantic uncomedy concerns two disturbed individuals finding love after accidentally brushing hands on the El. Sam and Susan both have serious daddy issues, which is used by the filmmakers to explain their pathological inability to have normal interactions with their fellow humans. This film has far fewer shots of the city to distract me from its flaws but makes up for it by having a storyline which alternates between scenes of excruciating discomfort and complete non sequitur. It’s as if the writer had tossed all the sentences of his screenplay into a bag and reassembled them at random. It’s a thing to behold. The film also gets extra Chicago cred for casting local legend Tony Fitzpatrick as Susan’s creepy father.
