A traveling salesman, Bennie, arrives at a hotel in Liverpool. The hotel seems deserted. When he goes to the empty lounge, he meets another salesman, Frank. The two decide to search for something to eat themselves, and thus walk across the streets of Liverpool in search for a restaurant. They talk about life along the way. They find one and order a huge dinner, but Bennie has panic attack and runs outside. Bennie and Frank walk and find themselves in Rotterdam, then Hong Kong, Tokyo, and finally in Almeria. They find a third businessman, Leroy, and then go to a small house and order beans. Inside a cottage, they find a family celebrating the birth of their baby. The three businessmen then part their ways.
Peculiar director Alex Cox, author of such cult films as "Repo Man" and "Sid and Nancy", added another strange achievement to his opus, experimental film "Three Businessmen", which can be basically described as "My Diner with Andre" with walking. However, unlike "Andre", "Businessman" does not have that many memorable dialogues, and seems rather aimless and "lost", especially in the forced (and abrupt) ending with the three businessmen (the last one appears only 10 minutes before the end of the film (!), which is also puzzling) as some sort of Three Kings visiting a modern day Nativity in a stable in Almeria. The problem is that the whole film up to that seems like a completely different film, or as if someone "misplaced" a different ending from a different script. There are some charming, humorous moments in the first third of the film: Bennie arrives at an empty hotel, and then says "Ring, ring!" at the reception desk. His walking and talking with Frank does have a few amusing lines, such as when they are arguing over the bizarre names of modern cars ("The Existentialist! The reindeer slayer!") or how to make conscious machines ("Just program the computer to feel fear and despair! This guy says this is what makes us the thinking animals that we are!"). While it is amusing that the two salesmen are walking across Liverpool, and in their search for a restaurant do not even notice that they are in completely different cities (Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Almeria)—which can be interpreted as some sort of commentary on human dislocation from their environment, and their self-absorbed nature which does not see anything past their own ego—the storyline is thin and aimless, with too much "empty walk", which is not very cinematic. For such a "movie about nothing", the authors needed to craft a lot more highlights to engage the viewers than presented here.
Grade:+
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