'Catechism Cataclysm': The strange quest of a doofus

Remember Old Joy, Kelly Reichardt's shambling tale about two guys who go off in the woods, smoke weed, and talk a lot?

The Catechism Cataclysm, one of the two opening-night entries for CineFest 2011, is something like that - only without the artistry, and absent any revelation. It seems hopelessly without a point - unless the point has something to do with dropping a Bible into a dirty toilet. And if you want to spend time with a truly irksome individual, a priest who's aptly nicknamed "Father Doofus" because, well, he's a priest and a doofus, then Todd Rohal's movie is for you.

Steve Little, who plays Danny McBride's peculiarly devoted valet in TV's Eastbound & Down, is Father William, a clergyman who would rather surf the Net than sermonize his flock. It's quite possible he's experiencing a crisis of faith, only he seems so dim and oblivious that it's hard to tell.

It's thanks to the Web, in fact, that he's been able to catch up with - or stalk - his high school hero, Robbie Shoemaker (Robert Longstreet), a cool guy who always had a colorful story at the ready. So William tracks Robbie down, and somehow, over platters of chicken fingers and saturated fats, persuades him to take a canoe trip.

As the two men, who aren't really friends at all, wind their way downstream, various tales are told - about a depressed businessman who tries to kill himself, about a Mexican construction worker who gets trapped in a column of concrete. These stories are brought to life in filmed vignettes, as if to suggest allegorical significance.

William and Robbie drink beer and trade barbs, and then happen on a pair of giggly Japanese girls in panda hats. Their names are Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, so you can see where that's going. (Actually, you can't.) Other literary references: John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (i.e., Lennie, rape). The more unpleasant aspects of Deliverance come to mind, too.

There's a certain deadpan comedic realism to be found here - until it turns into midnight-movie stoner surrealism. But that doesn't mean it's funny. At the close of the film, Rohal brings Father William back to where we found him, huddled with a group of parishioners. His strange quest is over, and maybe he's learned something.

Or, maybe he hasn't.EndText