AllMovie

This raw-looking yet creatively polished debut effort from director Peter Hyoguchi delivers early on the democratic promise of digital video. Sort of a Dogma 95 take on Slums of Beverly Hills, but without the comic gloss or renowned actors, First, Last and Deposit showcases most of the new medium's strengths while overcoming many of its weaknesses. The first thing Hyoguchi does right is to find a plot, characters, and settings tailor-made for DV rather than capriciously shooting a more traditional feature on a trendy high-end camcorder, a la Chuck and Buck. A relatively familiar tale of a downward economic spiral, the film feels fresh because DV allows Hyoguchi to follow his characters fluidly into a variety of settings, from a high school girls' restroom and the interior of a seedy motel room to the parking lot of a grocery store and the characters' shabby automobile home-on-wheels. It's not that a traditional film director couldn't hit all of these places, it's just that they'd usually lack the immediacy of Hyoguchi's work -- the verite tinge of unvarnished reality. The story -- and these emotionally resonant, unmannered performances, most notably those of Sara Wilcox and Jessica White -- works best when viewed from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. The script does suffer a bit from its melodramatic plot and the clumsiness of its seemingly tacked-on conclusion. But the right-there quality of the camera work and the raw emotion of the mostly untrained cast helps restore the dramatic pull to even such hand-me-down Hollywood elements. First, Last and Deposit is hardly a cinematic milestone, but it is a gripping yarn, produced cheaply and proficiently, and with production values that seem as much an aesthetic choice as an economic one. Such films will only multiply as the DV movement finds its legs. And that's a good thing.