A middle-aged thrift store employee vows to seek revenge on those who wronged him in Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break. Paul Dood (Tom Meeten) is an aspiring performer, who is working hard to audition for a talent competition run by social media star Jack Tapp (Kevin Bishop). However, thanks to a miscommunication, Paul panics when he learns that the audition is a week earlier than planned. With the support of his janitor friend Clemmie (Katherine Parkinson), Paul rushes to make the audition, however, several unsavoury folks, including Jack Tapp himself, prevent his dreams from coming true. After some misinterpreted advice from his boss and counsellor Jayney (Pippa Haywood), Paul decides to live stream his lunch break, as he sets off to murder everyone who ruined his audition.
Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break is a British black comedy and the sophomore feature for co-writer and director Nick Gillespie, who has previously been best known as the director of photography for the films of Ben Wheatley. The film stars Tom Meeten (The Mighty Boosh) as the titular Paul Dood, a middle-aged thrift store employee living with his mother Julie (June Watson), who has aspirations of being the triple threat of singer, actor, and dancer. Paul finds his dreams dashed by a series of unfortunate events, however, ironically, Paul’s subsequent search for bloody revenge ends up turning him into the star he always wanted to be.
On the surface, Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break is setting itself to be a “man against the world” revenge film, not unlike 1993’s Falling Down. However, the film goes in a much more darkly humourous direction that has a lot of heart, while also commenting somewhat on the proliferation of social media in this day and age and how anyone can easily go viral. This is a film worth checking out.
Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break streams on October 16, 2021 as the Gala Closing Film of the virtual 2021 Toronto After Dark Film Festival
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Trailer for Paul Dood’s Deadly Lunch Break – Toronto After Dark 2021
