A false cowboy finds himself in China’s wastelands in this unsettling take on the US’s economic dependence on China.
The premise of Ghostbox Cowboy may seem bizarre at first: an American entrepreneur attempts to sell his gadget—a black box that can communicate with deceased loved ones—to Chinese investors, hoping to get rich. But the film itself is far stranger.
Ghostbox Cowboy, directed, written, and edited by John Maringouin, follows Jimmy (David Zellner), a charismatic, middle-aged former businessman with a penchant for cowboy hats. He stands in a dollar store somewhere in the middle of America, trucker hat askew, fixedly examining a cheap toy, which says “Made in China” on the back. This, somehow, is enough to make Jimmy travel to China to peddle his device.
When he arrives in China, Jimmy finds his old buddy Bob (Robert Longstreet), who himself has made a fortune thanks to all the money flying around the tech industry. Jimmy is then set up with a supposed tech genius, an American named Specialist, who got rich manufacturing knockoff iPhones.
The film is shot as a mockumentary. As a result, the viewer is not exactly sure what is real and what isn’t. For example, Specialist is merely allowing his life to be caught on camera. But when Chinese investors hear Jimmy’s pitch about how his box can talk to ghosts, everyone is eerily credulous.
The story soon verges into dark territory as Jimmy is fooled by his investors as well as his American friends. He finds himself without a penny in a strange land. And, worst of all, he finds his invention on sale in China’s tech shops for inordinate sums. He ends up getting a job as a kind of actor, posing as a cowboy and film star for Chinese promotional pictures and weddings. His only hope of getting his gadget back and reclaiming his fortune is to visit the man behind it all, the enigmatic Johnny Mai Thai (J.R. Cazet), who resides in one of China’s northernmost, as yet unpopulated, metropolises.
Despite the interesting issues it presents on China’s factories, its massive, uninhabited cities, its wealth of young investors, and what this means for Americans, Ghostbox Cowboy is too concerned with its own lack of direction and bonkers-ness to deliver on these issues.
Photo Courtesy of teaser-trailer.com
