The movie, which had its Miami premiere earlier this month at Miami Dade College’s Miami Film Festival, features talking heads, including Bosch himself, eager to confess all to director Corben. Bosch was the founder of Biogenesis of America, a Coral Gables health clinic promising rejuvenation treatments and ultimately connected to performance-enhancing drugs used by MLB players like Alex Rodriguez and Melky Cabrera.
A New Times investigation by Tim Elfrink, former managing editor of this publication, exposed the clinic. Screwball, in fact, opens much like one of Elfrink’s articles following the saga, in which the writer focuses on Porter Fischer, the former employee of Biogenesis who blew the whistle on Bosch’s operation to New Times. But the creatives at Rakontur, which also include Spellman as a creative producer and David Cypkin as co-producer and a massive talent on the editing board, tell the story with their own unique flair. Cypkin, who has worked with the duo since Cocaine Cowboys (2006), brings a kinetic flow to the proceedings.
Screwball wouldn't be half as entertaining, however, were it not for two key elements: Fischer and Bosch, the latter of whom spent a little over a year and a half in federal prison for his acts, and both of whom suffer from diarrhea of the mouth. Child actors play out their wild stories in vivid, comical reenactments featuring hilariously on-point wardrobe, coifs, and facial hair. (Ian Mackles even sports a ginger beard as Elfrink.) It’s a brilliant move that speaks to both the childishness and audacity of the events.
Fischer (Frankie Diaz), who went from juicing client to
Tie it back to the Fountain of Youth, and you have a rich and hilarious metaphor that works to enhance the surprises of yet another rich story of Florida fuckery by Rakontur.
Screwball opens in Miami on Friday, March 29, at MDC’s Tower Theater Miami and O Cinema Miami Beach.
