IF YOU THINK for a moment that the highly touted, expensively promoted, award-winning films are the best films being made, then you aren’t standing in line at festivals or taking chances on what’s left at the rental outlets by 11 p.m. Proof of this observation came to me recently in the form of a brilliant tale about office life and urban terrorism. True to its name, He Was a Quiet Man is a quiet film, chilling in its subtext and psychologically astute.

Christian Slater plays Bob Maconel, a mild-mannered cubicle rat with a whole lot of anger and a fierce imagination. The thing is, somebody else has more anger.
Just as Bob is about to pick off some of the people he hates most with a loaded gun, his office mate beats him too it and slugs Vanessa (Elisha Cuthbert), a girl Bob has always secretly adored. In the melee, Bob shoots the killer and saves a few lives, an act of accidental heroism which gets him moved upstairs, to the post of VP of Creative Thinking, a gofer to the big boss, but apparently a position of status. The office slut now turns her boobs his way. Bob ignores her, and undertakes to look after Vanessa, who is left a quadriplegic by the outbreak. Affection develops, until she begs him to assist her suicide.

A dark comedy, fully observed, He Was a Quiet Man is both a satire on office life and a surprisingly sympathetic study of the borderline personality. Writer/director Frank Capello has a lot in his mind. In his view, the dynamic of such madness arises from all too-common elements of office politics, the petty ego-fests and the ruthlessness of people fighting each other for status and gratification. Next to this place, The Office (both American and British incarnations) is a happy playground of good friends. While rife with misogyny, the scene is populated by attractive women for whom sex is just another CV item.

Slater’s touch with the role of a tortured loner is a light one, and moving. He’s adept at conveying the depths of feeling and imagination at work behind the unsuspecting wallflower. This is the kind of film which re-defines an actor, and Slater goes at it with great conviction. In the filmography of Hollywood star, work like this exposes the limitations placed on an actor by success. Here he’s outside his comfort zone, and loving it.

While the subject is dark, Capello’s comedic touch is sure. Watching his original mind at work is both absorbing and joyful, even if the subject matter is not. He Was a Quiet Man played film festivals but was never taken on by a major distributor. It had a limited run in theatres late last year, and settled into obscurity.

Overcharged though the celluloid world is these days, it’s good to know an overlooked gem like this can still be found, at least as a rental. For once, the accolades on the back of the box are not a joke.