Adapting his play from the stage to screen, John Pollono writes, directs, and stars in Small Engine Repair, a film about toxic masculinity, the men who fuel that culture, and its effects on the women in their lives. Pollono doesn’t hold back when it comes to dialogue, which is heavily crass but cohesive, and the strength of it is what ultimately carries the film through to the end. While Small Engine Repair’s message is clear, it doesn’t completely take off and is fragmented in its pacing, with a twisted turn that doesn't land.
Set in “Manch-Vegas” which is a derisive term used to describe those living in Manchester, New Hampshire (and helpfully defined at the beginning of the film), the story follows Frank (Pollono), an ex-con who runs a machine shop, and his best friends Swaino (Jon Bernthal) and Packie (Shea Whigham). The trio spend much of their time cracking jokes, telling anecdotes, and attempting to understand how social media works (thanks to Packie, who knows his way around Instagram). Their chemistry holds the film together even when things fall apart, and their camaraderie and closeness is elevated further by their affection for Frank’s 17-year-old daughter Crystal (Ciara Bravo), who, among other things, has a complicated history with her mother and Frank’s estranged ex-wife Karen (Jordana Spiro).
Despite Frank not being able to afford it, Crystal is on the road to making them all proud after being accepted into a great university. The hope for a better future looms like a light breaking through a dark cloud that has followed their lives for years. Things take a dark turn, however, when they cross paths with a drug dealer, Chad (Spencer House), an event that ultimately changes the tone of the film and the direction of the story. Although the film is full of spirited (and testosterone-fueled) discussions, Small Engine Repair takes its sweet time getting to the crux of the story, slowly trudging along.
What were once mere anecdotes in the play are adapted into visual storytelling for the film, with Pollono pulling away from Swaino telling them a stories of picking up women at a bar to offering flashbacks that show the event. It’s meant to add layers to a narratively-heavy film, but the flashbacks, including one to Crystal’s childhood, are often abrupt and disruptive to the story’s natural and buoyant flow. The film is at its best when Frank, Packie, and Swaino are making verbal jabs at each other, telling stories, and otherwise roughing it up together. In these moments, the performances from Pollono, Bernthal (who is a distinct talent), and Whigham soar as they seamlessly play off of each other, their verbal sparring doing the legwork to ground the film.
And yes, Pollono has a lot to say about the ways in which toxic masculinity influences male friendships — with the majority of the anecdotes bringing up women while simultaneously objectifying them, hyping themselves up in the story while being dismissive of the women — and how it also filters down in its impact on Crystal's life. To that end, Small Engine Repair does a commendable job taking to task Frank and his friends’ participation in the very behavior they attempt to shut down in jerks like the privileged and overtly toxic drug dealer Chad.
However, it’s in Chad’s arrival that the film’s cracks truly begin to show, with Frank crafting a violent plan to punish him and using brute force to terrify and drive home a point that becomes too heavy-handed in its approach. Small Engine Repair’s dark and twisted turn in its final act is grim and gruesomely over-the-top, altering the darkly comedic nature of the film and sending it into a purely dark territory. The film ends on a hopeful note, but it feels rather empty considering all that came before.
Small Engine Repair is now playing in theaters. The film is 103 minutes long and is rated R for pervasive language, crude sexual content, strong violence, a sexual assault, and drug use.
Key Release Dates
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Small Engine Repair
Release Date:2021-09-10
