“There is a special pleasure to be had in Modus Operandi.” — Roger Ebert
Director/Writer: Frankie Latina
Writer/Producer: Andrew Swant
Producers: Bobby Ciraldo, Shalyse Dominique, Mark & Laurie Foote, Sasha Grey, Jon Krill, Barry Poltermann, Danny Trejo, Gilbert Trejo, Jack Turner, Sean Williamson
Featuring screen legend Danny Trejo (Spy Kids, Heat, Machete), Mark Borchardt (American Movie), Michael Sottile (Reservoir Dogs), and Mark Metcalf (Animal House, Seinfeld).
Music by Didier Leplae (Master of None, Superjail) & Joe Wong (Russian Doll, Ballmastrz).
SYNOPSIS
Two briefcases with mysterious contents are stolen from top Presidential candidate Squire Parks, setting off a deadly series of double-crosses and betrayals. Black Ops agent Stanley Cashay is offered the identity of his wife’s killer in exchange for locating and returning the cases.
HISTORY
Modus Operandi premiered at the CineVegas Film Festival, where it found sales representation from Submarine Entertainment (The Cove, Super Size Me, Man on Wire) and distribution though Kino Lorber.
The film then screened at the Chinese Theater in Los Angeles as part of the American Film Institute festival’s opening night gala, where the Modus Operandi team walked the red carpet with Bill Murray, Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, and Peter Bogdanovich.
Former adult film star Sasha Grey (The Girlfriend Experience, Entourage) presented Modus Operandi to a sold-out audience at the IFC in New York, with Danny Trejo and Mark Borchardt also in attendance.
The film streamed on Netflix for three years and is currently available on Amazon.
PRESS
ROGER EBERT, Chicago Sun-Times:
“You need to have paid your dues to appreciate Modus Operandi. Have you marinated in exploitation films? The cheap kind from the 60s and 70s, made by fly-by-night filmmakers on starvation budgets? It’s not enough to like such films because they’re so bad they’re good. You need to specialize, and like the films because they’re so good about being so bad they’re good. Modus Operandi, a film by Frankie Latina that has won praise on the midnight movie festival circuit, is such a film. If you have paid those dues, there is a special pleasure to be had in Modus Operandi. The film is touring the nation in search of those like Quentin Tarantino and John Waters who would stay planted in their seats and watch it a second time.”
Mike Hale, The New York Times:
“With its deliberate clumsiness, its seemingly random juxtapositions and a handmade look achieved through slavish attention to film stock, lighting, fashions and furnishings, Frankie Latina’s Modus Operandi bears a greater surface resemblance to the 1960s and ’70s genre films to which it pays homage than Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse did.”
Los Angeles Times:
“Brilliantly sleazy — imagine a 1960s Italian spy thriller shot on Super-8. In Milwaukee. Seriously.”
“A week after Robert Rodriguez’s Machete brought the grindhouse to the multiplex, a far better exploitation derivation slithers out from the sticky-floored theater from whence it came. A handmade, endearingly disreputable valentine to no-budget, maximum-impact cinema, Modus Operandi is seriously seedy and truly inspired.”
— The Village Voice
“Modus Operandi is genius-level garbage. The entire film is an intricately designed spoof.”
— New York Post
“Blaxploitation meets Art-House. A mondo B-movie that holds nothing back … Modus Operandi is a movie utterly content with its own insanity.”
— Eric Kohn, indieWIRE
“I hope Latina never gets discovered so that he can keep making micro-budgeted nuggets of retro trash cinema detritus just like this.”
— New York Press
“This may be the bloodiest, perviest espionage thriller Ed Wood never made.”
— Time Out New York
“Modus Operandi is a trip. A fuzzed out ode to B-gangster films, ’60s political paranoia thrillers, ’80s late-night Skinemax, and raunchy underground cinema … An act of will shot on Super 8.”
— Filmmaker Magazine
“Modus Operandi was the talk of the festival among media and execs after its premiere … It bursts with campiness and odes to ’70s movie outrageousness.”
— The Hollywood Reporter
“Latina is paying tribute to the ’70s here, but in a bizarre, formalist way: One scene might play like a retro spy spoof, the next like a British gangster flick, another like an experimental Warhol piece, and yet another like Italian neorealism … Expect it to appear on Quentin Tarantino’s Best of ’09 list.”
— LA Weekly
“The film is a testament to determination … Robert Rodriguez would be proud.”
— Independent Film Quarterly
“Modus Operandi is masterful.”
— The Onion A.V. Club
“This little gem is one of the better independent films I’ve seen this year.”
— Fangoria
“If you ever wondered what a James Bond film directed by Ed Wood would look like, here is your answer.”
— Las Vegas Weekly
“Modus Operandi clearly does not take place in the real world, but in the surreal realm of 1970s exploitation cinema, where strange and outrageous things are bound to happen.”
— MovieMaker Magazine
“Frankie Latina’s one-of-a-kind exploitation film has been delighting and confounding audiences at film festivals and midnight screenings all over the world.” — Steven Hyden, The Onion A.V. Club
“Frankie Latina pulls it off with a freshness and charm that’s unquestionably invigorating … Modus Operandi is what Grindhouse should have been — maybe, would have been — if freed from ego and studio budget bloat … It’s got to be one of the great underground discoveries of the year.” — Spout
“A high powered film that surprises with every turn creating something I have personally never seen on the screen. Where Machete fails, Modus Operandi succeeds. A thrilling display of sex, drugs and ultra violence that spoofs the spy genre and turns the James Bond archetype on its head. I guarantee you’ll never see a film quite like Modus Operandi in theaters ever again.” — The Criterion Cast
“Five stars! True Grindhouse! I couldn’t have had a better time.” — eFilmCritic.com
“An indescribable James Bondage spoof … Modus Operandi is the jewel of this year’s festival.” — HollywoodChicago
“Modus Operandi feels like the genuine article, a real piece of forlorn invention and movie affection that is almost beyond questions of bad and good. A classic.” — The Province Vancouver
“An homage to exploitation thrillers from the 70s, with CIA agents, mysterious briefcases, shady underworld double-crosses, and lots of sexy girls … strung together with a splendid funky score. An appropriate formal mishmash that is hugely inventive … A cherishable oddball curio.” — ScreenCrave
“A lot more interesting than the low-rent Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino trickle-down you might expect from the film’s description. Modus Operandi is a baffling low-budget curiosity from an alien mind.” — BlogCritics
“An indie tribute to exploitation movies that out-grinds even Grindhouse.” — Scene Magazine
“The film indeed looks cool. It’s grainy and rough … but is shot with a verve and style seldom seen in more polished fare. Recommended. Buckets of fun.” — DVD Talk
“Modus Operandi invokes a checklist of low-budget styles, including: blaxploitation, French New Wave, Nikkatsu gangster flicks, William Castle, Russ Meyer, Seijun Suzuki, and early George A. Romero. Once you add a soundtrack with piano keys and fuzz pedals as ammo and you have a fun, titillating low-rent James Bond!” — Facets Multi-Media Chicago
“A batshit insane no-budget Super-8 film mixing the aesthetics of blaxploitation and European art film. I saw it between Black Dynamite and Machete and it blew both films away.” — Jumpcut Junkies
“The cult that is allowing Tommy Wiseau to control their responses to his shitty, shitty, shitty movie, The Room, would do well to discover Modus Operandi — it’s less pretentious and a lot more fun.” — House of Sparrows
“Winner of the Grand Festival Feature Award. A sleazy retro tour of 1970s underworld blaxploitation chic by way of the back alleys, swimming pools, and abandoned industrial wastelands of Milwaukee in a sort of post-modern James Blond flick.” — Berkeley Video & Film Festival
SELECTED SCREENINGS
American Film Institute Film Festival (AFI) – Los Angeles, CA
CineVegas International Film Festival – Las Vegas, NV
Independent Film Center (IFC) – New York, NY
Facets Cinémathèque – Chicago, IL
Chicago Underground Film Festival – Chicago, IL
Roxie Theater – San Francisco, CA
Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival – Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Super 8mm Festival – Szeged, Hungary
Off Plus Camera Int’l Film Fest of Independent Cinema – Krakow, Poland
Kinosmiðja International Film Festival – Reykjavik, Iceland
Lausanne Underground Film Festival – Lausanne, Switzerland