Written by Brinna Kelly
Directed by D.C. Hamilton
Starring Gino Anthony Pesi, Brinna Kelly and Jason Stuart
Running time: 1 hour and 22 minutes

by Samuel Antezana

To most accurately describe The Fare is to say that it feels like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone with a dash of ancient Greek mythology. It also feels too long, even at an eighty-two minute running time.

A cab driver, Harris (Gino Anthony Pesi), follows a desert road to pick up a passenger, Penny (Brinna Kelly), from the middle of nowhere. After nearing a stormy area of the desert road and some casual conversation about stripping, Harris’s passenger disappears. With no sign of Penny, Harris resets his fare meter, which unwittingly transports him into a time loop where he continues to pick her up over and over again.

I’m going to come clean, I’m not too partial to films that deal with time travel in any capacity, especially when those films don’t follow the rules they set for said time travel. That said, The Fare’s time shenanigans never get overly complicated or tricky to the point where I’m struggling to make sense of the whole thing. The fact that most of the story takes place in the taxi cab and with only two characters makes it way easier to follow.

While relying on sci-fi and supernatural tropes to pull in its viewers, the true meat of the film comes from the performances of its two leads and the romance that forms at the core of the story. Pesi and Kelly may be prone to soap-opera level acting from time to time, but they still manage to make some of the more mundane dialogue come to life through their apparent chemistry. The romantic subplot, combined with the supernatural elements and the ruminations on what may be keeping Harris and Penny interlocked in their seemingly endless loop, keeps the film from getting too sidetracked. However, this doesn’t do enough for the film as a whole, which gets repetitive and, by default, a bit dull when you near the halfway mark.

Technically, Harrison’s execution of Kelly’s script is quite impressive when you take into account whatever budget constraints the film most definitely had, as well as the location limitations. Tight editing and a varied shot coverage keeps moments inside the cab feeling more dynamic, not to mention the passage of time is handled with surprising finesse. On the other hand, the score mainly serves as background noise that feels unnecessary and, at times, contrived to build a certain mood. There’s also nothing to note about the choice of black and white photography that is only in the first quarter of the film, other than it serves to emphasize the moments were Harris himself is unaware of, or struggling to remember, when a time loop has occurred.

The Fare doesn’t function particularly well as a feature length film. Harris and Penny’s journey, while genuinely emotional and shrouded by an intriguing mystery, is not enough to merit its duration. Halfway through the film, I couldn’t help but think that Kelly’s screenplay would, perhaps, be more effective as a short film.

Available November 19th, on demand and on blu-ray here