Free Enterprise

Starring: Audie England, Eric McCormack Director: Robert Meyer Burnett Original UK Premiere: 1998 Dvd Release: 6th January, 2003 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

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Free Enterprise is a 1998 comedy/romance movie featuring William Shatner, directed by Robert Meyer Burnett & written by Mark A Altman & Robert Meyer Burnett. William Shatner plays a campy caricature of himself. The film deals with the mid-life crises of its two main protagonists, as well as William Shatners quest to be taken seriously as an artist. Hip-hop artist The Rated R, joined by Shatner, provides the concluding musical number, which is a tribute to Shakespeares Julius Caesar. The films score was produced by Scott Spock. The film is laced with highly esoteric references to past & contemporary science-fiction films & television shows. Most prominent is the orginal Star Trek, which is treated by the protagonists as a source of inspiration & moral guidance. Free Enterprise explores the dating scene for late gen-x Hollywood singles from a decidedly sardonic perspective & is considered by many Star Trek fans to be a must-see for any self-respecting Trekkie. Won 4 awards including the 2000 Saturn Award for Best Home Video Release.

Set in LA among the same narcissistic, vain & pop culture-obsessed generation already celebrated in Kevin Smiths Clerks & Doug Limans Swingers, Free Enterprise is a smart-aleck comedy that consciously holds a mirror up to the lives of twenty- & thirtysomethings everywhere. Anyone who grew up in the shadows of Star Trek & Star Wars will find plenty to laugh about & identify with here. The loose premise follows two self-professed geeks: Mark , in a delightful spin on Logans Run, is agonising about reaching his 30th birthday before he has achieved anything much at all, while his slacker pal Robert neglects his daytime editing job to woo a comic-reading, nerdy yet totally babelicious wish-fulfilment girlfriend. The great joy of the movie, however, is not the constant parade of witty movie in-jokes, but the appearance of William Shatner as himself. He plays a washed-up, boozy actor desperately touting to anyone who will listen his idea for William Shatners William Shakespeares Julius Caesar: The Musical , displaying all the while a refreshing gift for comic understatement. Shatner brings real pathos & self-deprecating humour to the depiction of the gulf between the other characters hero-worship of his on-screen persona & his subjective reality as a misunderstood actor. By the time he gets round to performing a mind-boggling bizarre rap version of Marc Anthonys soliloquy, the ageing Captain Kirk has redeemed himself, both in the eyes of the characters & the viewing audience.

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