Review by Frank Plowright

In the late 1970s Billy Bonney has just completed a six year sentence. He thinks he’s going to be able to return home, to the town where he burned down the local factory, but while his friends stand by him, others were directly affected, and aren’t happy to see him again, something Billy’s parents anticipated. Unlike many in the same situation, though, Billy has an option. His Uncle Larry stars in low budget Hollywood movies where his capacity as a draw just about outweighs a reputation as violent alcoholic. Billy’s brother Bobby has already decamped to Hollywood and works as a gopher on Larry’s film sets.

Graham Chaffee doesn’t have a conventional approach to either art or storytelling, which is completely naturalistic. Everything needed to work things out is there in the dialogue, but not necessarily obvious at once, such as Billy and Bobby being brothers. And while Billy starts off as the focus, he’s absorbed into a larger cast as Chaffee’s purpose is an overarching look at the corruption and sleaze of 1970s Hollywood. Within that, though, the characters are strong, Billy having obsessive/compulsive tendencies and a stuttering nervousness, but for all Larry’s monstrous personality it’s film producer Saul that carries the plot. He’s entirely without ethics, but needs to consider how his backers pulling an insurance scam is going to benefit him.

While the script is naturalistic, Chaffee’s art is slightly exaggerated, sometimes having the look of a Mad Magazine film parody without being as accomplished. He delivers people well, and and they exist within populated environments,

While absorbing in places, and maintaining an effective noir mood, Light It, Shoot It isn’t entirely convincing. A lack of focus is one problem. Chaffee spreading his attention across so many aspects of the film industry results in unrequired scenes, which would be an excusable indulgence if they didn’t interrupt moments of greater relevance. Thereafter everything leads to a crisis point so obvious that the assumption has been Chaffee foreshadowing only to surprise by heading elsewhere. A staged ending develops from it, and Light It, Shoot It fades out with a corpse count, but little definitively resolved. It sparkles in moments, but not throughout.