The Unstealable Bike – 2.5 stars (2024)

Director: Alan Smithee

Running time: 14mins

The biggest problem with mockumentaries is that the good ones make it look easy. Too easy. I was speaking to my IFL colleague John Ranson recently, and the subject of This is Spinal Tap came up. Almost all of the film is improvised – which seems impossible, considering how perfectly its comedic beats land. The idea you could make a movie like that and it turn out so well makes it sound like this is a genre that is something anyone could have a stab at – even if they don’t have the budget for a big filming team, or knack for writing.

But there are two resources that you cannot pull this off without. While the brilliance of Tap reflects the uncanny ability of the actors to inhabit a role to make it a living, breathing comedic performance, it also shows how you need huge amounts of time to allow that kind of natural performance, and a fleet of talented editors to put it together. More than 100 hours of footage were shot – 82 minutes were used – and without the efforts of Robert Leighton, Kent Beyda, and Kim Secrist, the film might have been a disaster.

That is the kind of commitment necessary to deliver perfection (as Johnny recently did) in this very particular sub-genre, though – and one which it doesn’t seem the team behind the subject of this review had the time, energy or resources to match. The Unstealable Bike is a stilted, timid effort, which does not seem to have given either of its stars much room to explore their characters, or the absurdity of their situation.

This may be explained by the fact it is a student film. Students and their talented peers invariably have the ability to make a great documentary – but what they usually lack is the time to do so, as their college’s conveyor belt churns them toward another major deadline. In order to try and make her job as editor a little easier while meeting such a deadline, it may be the case that the director decided to heavily script The Unstealable Bike. As well as directing, they are credited as the film’s writer – and it would also explain the unfortunately stiff performance of their two leads.

The lead actor never seems to get out of first-gear as Floris, a bicycle thief in Amsterdam. As he goes through the motions in front of the camera, nothing seems to be played straight – which is the death of a comedy mockumentary. During the interviews, our lead character happily details everything about his previously shadowy existence.

Floris explains how he selects a target, how he breaks locks, and how he refurbishes the stolen items at his bike shop – he even agrees for the camera to accompany him on multiple raids – never once thinking what the real-world implications of this might be. After all, his face and name are now out there – as is footage of him committing multiple crimes that carry a jail-sentence for repeat offenders. This is not only a missed opportunity for a proper punchline in this short – the oafish and arrogant bike-thief, so convinced of his own genius that he only realises what’s been filmed when it is too late – but a great way to get us to invest in this world, to believe in it, and to subsequently revel in the absurdity it throws up.

At the same time, another comedic beat falls flat because the actor doesn’t seem to have the space to elaborate on his arrogance. He brushes past a lot of the intricacies of his trade, in a way that does not suggest he sees himself as much of a specialist at all. This means when he does struggle with the climactic theft, it doesn’t really land. He needs to be more in line with Michael Fassbender’s character in David Fincher’s borderline farce The Killer – an ‘expert’ who spends hours lecturing the world about how well he knows his craft, only to immediately botch the cases we witness him on. Without that duality – if this just feels like a man who sees himself as unexceptional, occasionally getting things wrong like we all do – then the comedy diminishes.

That is a missed opportunity, because Floris is supposed to come across that way. He still fondly remembers the first bike he ever stole, to the extent that he has a photograph of him with it. And he is smug enough about his skills to have a ‘protégé’ follow him around. But we never get into the bizarre, euphemistic poetry that humans get into when they take their jobs or lives too seriously. The stuff that you would get from allowing the actor to wander through his role, and pick out his own points of psychological absurdity to highlight. (For a non-cinematic example, think of the lyrics to Pulp’s I Spy; “The crowd gasp at Cocker’s masterful control of the bicycle. Skilfully avoiding the dog turd outside the corner shop.”)

Coming back to Floris’ understudy – and the film’s weakened finale – the supporting actor also seems to have been entrusted with little room for improvisation. He puts in a distinctly one-note performance as Anton, who bumbles around behind Floris during expeditions to deserted bike-racks, making noise and drawing attention. The script affords him a lone opportunity to prove himself as an equal to Floris, and it is not an especially interesting one. While the climactic theft in the last scene might have bested the old master, Anton seemingly gets the title’s unstealable bike unlocked. In the film’s closing credits, thinking he is off-camera, he checks that the camera is off (a good way of making sure a documentary crew actually keeps rolling), before admitting the bike was unlocked before they even got there.

Considering how little respect the climactic sequence actually won him from his mentor, that doesn’t feel like much of a victory for Anton. At the same time, he hasn’t been given any chance to show he is anything but an idiotic copy of his teacher – that he might learn from his mistakes or shortcomings in a way that would make for more interesting comedic beats. If, for example, this ‘off-the-record’ scene saw him ask where exactly this footage will be seen, that might have been the kind of punchline that could have pulled this one out of the weeds. As it is, however, it remains mired in mediocrity.

There are some very promising signs in the technical aspects of this director’s production. It is beautifully shot, and the editing (however structured the script might have been) is well-executed. But it is light on laughs, and lacks ways to get us to buy into the story or its characters in a way that means we can laugh at or with them. Perhaps this is most horrifically exemplified by the electronic remix track which pads out the run-time after the credits – featuring one of the film’s extras saying in a stodgy American accent “someone ought to do something about these bike-thieves”, over a repetitive beat. Fortunately, most people will probably have tuned out before that segment rolls – but having watched every second, it is pure anti-comedy.