Tribe: The Untold Story of the Making of Vice Cops – By Manuel Alejandro Vargas – Short Film Review
Set in Austin, Texas, we are introduced to two “brave young men” who are writers. Their mission? Writing the greatest film drama of all time. How is it going? Not well, but the smoothies they are making look fantastic. We are instantly introduced to Miguel (Manuel Alejandro Vargas) and Richie (Mick Primmer) who are stuck between making another smoothie and writing the film that their investor is paying them for. Both characters are incredibly apparent from the get-go with Richie being the cool laid-back stoner and Miguel being the slightly more uptight writer who is swayed by Richie’s stoner ways.
After some goofing off, some Mary-Jane and a tonne of great films, Miguel despairs that the two have written nothing. Or have they? The culmination of their work is then shown in the hilarious trailer for “Vice Cops”. Get ready for film-ception; the short film has a trailer for a film within the film.
Without spoiling the plot, you can really see that both writers Manuel and Mick have nailed the whole 80s buddy-cop tropes. Everything from the dodgy cinematography to the badly choreographed fights to the upbeat synth music just screams 80s. The two characters Xander Kage/Morgan Armstrong (Xavier Alavaro) and Tommy Blade/Rex Spade (Thomas
Burke) nail the 80s buddy-cop vibe from mannerisms to clothing to no nonsense attitude to crime. All rounded off by an 8s narration of the trailer. It’s hilarious.
You can really tell that every actor here had a tonne of fun within these roles. Clearly none of the cast take themselves too seriously, with Primmer and Vargas having written a short about how their characters wrote the best film of all time.
Tribe excels as a short film, the comedy had me genuinely laughing and you can tell that the entire production really cared about making the best spoof possible.
We are really excited to see where Manuel Alejandro Vargas goes next!