“Be careful who you trust out here,” Randy (David Krumholtz) tells Caiden (Caleb Alexander Smith) in “Forelock,” both dressed up as superheroes on Hollywood Boulevard, but for those familiar with the sort that takes pictures with tourists to make a living, hardly the types that you’d want to ever be remembered standing next to. Caiden himself is a bit of a tourist as well, having made his way from Indiana with a dream of being a fitness instructor leading him to Muscle Beach on the Venice Boardwalk, though his chiseled jaw and strong resemblance to the star of a comic book franchise make the gym owner who could potentially employ him think he could make a lot more money in Los Angeles as an impersonator at birthday parties and such and after a horrific piñata incident, his best chance at survival is hustling as Randy has for years in his second-rate Super Mario duds for tips from photographs with strangers. It is the side of Tinseltown that locals know and the world at large doesn’t, making for an enjoyably perverse variation on “Chinatown” that lets the sun expose the seedy underbelly of the city of dreams for so many.
Of course, Randy isn’t to be trusted either when his warning to Caiden comes after he’s pilfered $100 from him himself purportedly for a license to conduct his business that goes right into Randy’s pocket. However, the two end up having to have some level of mutual respect of one another when Randy needs some help getting out of a jam with Niko (Jason Wiles), a drug dealer who shares the same corner, and learns he could have the upper hand when Officer Dixon (Anna Suzuki), a cop who is even a little dirtier than getting down with Randy on occasion, comes to believe Niko may be partly responsible for the fentanyl that made it into the bloodstream of a world famous singer whose untimely passing is being mourned around the world. A reward is being offered for any clues about a cause for her premature death that the cop can’t claim, but with Randy’s connection to Niko, she could use his help and his name to claim the $100,000 and he, in turn, could use the assistance of the brawny Caiden as he roams around town trying to track down Niko and make sense of his pipeline.
Smith cooks up an effective caper that takes Randy and Caiden all across town from Union Station to the Sunset Strip with terrifically zippy camerawork, but regardless of the plot, the actor/writer/director knows what he has in a partner in Krumholtz, unlike their onscreen alter egos. The two make for an engaging dynamic duo with the salty and street smart “Oppenheimer” scene-stealer is positioned ironically to have the real muscle of the pair next to Smith’s cornpone Superman-lite (which as the film is smart to make light of by acknowledging copyright issues the film itself might face if he weren’t too low-rent to wear the “S” on his chest) and in general, Smith shows a real talent for world-building overall with an upside down view of Hollywood, refreshingly not anchored to the idea of making it in showbiz, but all of the parasitic industries that have popped up alongside it and operate in the shadows, rife with toxic and predatory attitudes. That Krumholtz and Smith still emerge as a truly lovable pair of losers becomes an impressive feat of strength for those only pretending to be heroes and the gleeful feeling of getting away with something runs throughout the production where colorful costume choices and a great use of Los Angeles locations amount to a great deal of fun.
“Forelock” does not yet have U.S. distribution.