Ten Long Minutes (Rifftrax Shorts)

Rifftrax Year:  2013
Riffers:  Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett

"Ten Long Minutes!  Peter Jackson's adaptation of the book 'Two Minutes!'"

This safety short features a man at work as his family goes out on a vacation, but receives a phone call from the police about an "accident."  Concerned about the well-being of his family, the man goes through a stack of scenarios in his head that might have happened to his wife and children, as he grows more anxious about his safety.

Turns out they had a flat tire because he sent them out after neglecting to replace a worn one.  Moral of the story is that good tires repress those feelings that your family has burned to death.  BUY TIRES!

To be fair, Ten Long Minutes is a fair representation of how anxiety runs scenarios through one's head, allowing you to question your own choices and have a phobia of almost everything around you being a potential threat.  The short's capitalist ending almost cheapens it, where if you paid more money to your mechanic this anxiety could have been prevented, but being prepared and keeping your car in top condition isn't an poor conclusion to come to.  I think its methods of teaching that moral are a bit extreme when there are consequences more related to the situation itself that could have been explored.  Instead, this short about having trustworthy tires gets to that point with false scenarios of faulty electrical outlets and loose boards as tripping hazards and the like, which have nothing to do with it.  I haven't really learned much of a lesson here.

"How did he, in good consciousness, send his family here!  Evidently death lurks around every corner!"

Most of the time I like these accident shorts, because the brazen showcase of stupidity offers a lot of riffing opportunity, and the consequences offer some wonderful setups for dark humor.  Ten Long minutes doesn't really offer up a lot of this, since it's pretty tame as far as safety shorts go, and the point of the short is fairly removed from the safety scenarios it presents.  The short is a bit aimless, and the riffing can't really pin it down as a result.  They attempt to play it goofy to counteract it's stoic nature, though it only takes them so far.  There are a few knocks about that "deathtrap" of a vacation home that are fun, but most of the short has us watching a pacing guy with a cigarette that doesn't really offer much room for comedy.

I laughed a few times, but think there are more shorts of this type out there that do this better.  Ten Long Minutes feels its length, and just isn't as fun as the best.

Thumbs Down

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