Film

[Local film]

Local film supergroup gives us darkly comedic thriller ‘Dealer the Movie’

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Lundon Boyd (left) and Luke Jones are up to something in Dealer the Movie.
Oogoog Productions
Jason Harris

The Las Vegas film version of a supergroup has formed. Spearheaded by Lundon Boyd, co-writer and star of 2012’s Liars, Fires and Bears, and produced by Oogoog Productions (Ride Report), Dealer the Movie is an anthology film created by some of Sin City’s finest filmmakers.

Boyd, who spends his summers in Anchorage, Alaska, doing asbestos abatement so he can afford to make films throughout the rest of the year with his friends in Vegas, was inspired by movies like Creepshow and Four Rooms. His pitch was simple enough: “A mistreated blackjack dealer is forced into becoming a drug dealer for a day with disastrous results.”

(Top row from left) Adam Zielinski, Cody LeBoeuf, Charles (Chuck) Akin, Jeremy Cloe, (bottom row from left) Ryan LeBoeuf, Mike Thompson, Wesley (Wes) Hirni and Jerry Thompson brought their considerable skills together for <em>Dealer the Movie</em>.

(Top row from left) Adam Zielinski, Cody LeBoeuf, Charles (Chuck) Akin, Jeremy Cloe, (bottom row from left) Ryan LeBoeuf, Mike Thompson, Wesley (Wes) Hirni and Jerry Thompson brought their considerable skills together for Dealer the Movie.

The film features four segments. Each director (or team of directors) was responsible for writing, shooting (for one week) and editing his own piece. Boyd wrote the wraparounds to tie the film together. He gushes about his collaborators.

First, there’s Jeremy Cloe, co-writer and director of Liars: “He’s searching for an emotional truth that he relates to,” Boyd says. “When you see anything he’s doing, it’s how he would react, how he would behave.”

Of Ryan and Cody LeBoeuf, directors of Rabbit Days, Boyd says: They’re like “if David Lynch liked making comedies.”

Then there’s Adam Zielinski, whose Nightwing web series has well over a million YouTube views: “He’s very much style-conscious. He wants a visual look to his movies, and he wants them to be thrilling and fast.”

And no local anthology would feel complete without Jerry and Mike Thompson, helmers of Thor at the Bus Stop and Popovich and the Voice of the Fabled American West. “If they weren’t filmmakers they’d be cartoonists,” Boyd says. “Their projects have this feeling of a Saturday morning cartoon. That’s what makes them so fun.”

Zielinski says it was only a matter of time before a project like this got made. “We all were friends from UNLV and have made movies among one another, so it made sense to put them into one feature,” he says. “I had heard an idea like that all through my time at UNLV, but Lundon was the first one out of us to put the wheels in motion.”

The dark comedy/action flick was shot in more than a dozen locations, including Treasures Gentlemen’s Club, Lake Mead and the Thriller Villa, Michael Jackson’s old abode.

The plan is to get the film out there in a few ways. Oogoog’s Charles Akin says he thinks, “It will be a huge festival film just based on its model alone,” but the group is focusing heavily on finding distributors and is already in conversation with a few.

While there’s still some shooting left, the goal is to have post-production done by June. Boyd sounds excited. “I think it’s a project that’s completely unique,” he says. “There’s not one bit that’s boring. You go see it and it’s going to be a blast.”

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