There’s a very narrow boundary between paying homage to a genre of film, and fully becoming part of it in itself – and when it comes to The Woman Chaser, the distinction has never been more clear. A relatively underseen (some may even say obscure) dark comedy produced in the late 1990s by a director known for his underground documentaries on subjects that more mainstream studios would never touch, the film is quite a bewildering experience, in the best way possible – hilariously funny, but also off-kilter in a way that pre-mumblecore independent comedies could be, the film is quite an achievement. Venturing into this film, you never can quite know what to expect – for some, the darkly comical sense of humour and off-the-wall tone may be repulsive, especially since so much of The Woman Chaser is delivered with the kind of deadpan candour that we don’t often find ourselves unearthing in most instances of showbusiness satires, but rarely with the kind of unforgiving absurdity that is more restricted to cult films, of which this is one of the more accurate constituents. Robinson Devor has many gifts as a filmmaker, and while his tastes and skills may veer more towards non-fiction film, The Woman Chaser has a similar kind of stark realism that makes it much more genuine in its perspective than many other films on the same subject – there’s something about the director’s caustic sense of humour that just works exceptionally well in the context of this film, and at its peak, the film is working with many different ideas, each one balanced with precision, humour and a lot of absurdity, which makes for an invigorating, if not slightly terrifying, work of fiction.

The film is set somewhere between the 1950s and 1960s (it never makes it particularly clear) and tells the story of a middle-aged used car salesman who has an epiphany that he should get out of the automobile business, and instead voyage into the world of cinema, a place that he has longed to enter for as long as he has been alive. Like many similar stories (such as Ed Wood, which this film seems to be actively inspired by), so much of what makes The Woman Chaser interesting is that it was made by someone with a fervent interest in the Golden Age of Hollywood, not necessarily in the major movie stars and the machinations of the big studios, but rather those that exist on the margins, the independent filmmakers and novice actors who have very little experience, but match their lack of skill with a remarkable level of ambition. The parallels between the narrative of the film, and the circumstances in which this specific project was made are never officially made clear, but we can easily tell that this is not a film that had many resources at its disposal. However, as independent cinema has shown on countless occasions (especially those produced before it became vogue to be known as independent), the most paltry materials can be used to create incredible works of art – and considering how much of The Woman Chaser is built around the idea of thrifty resourcefulness and using every possible tool available to them – and we can easily tell in which direction the film is heading based solely on how Devor and his cast and crew frame the film as much deeper than a simply comedy about Hollywood, but a deeply thoughtful and very interesting account of the artistic process in its most undistilled form.

If we’re discussing the wonderfully deadpan sensibilities of this film, it would be foolish to neglect to mention that this film is led by Patrick Warburton, an actor who has proven himself to be one of the most compelling when it comes to straight-faced earnestness. He is the lead of The Woman Chaser, playing the part of the salesman-turned-filmmaker who decides to risk everything he has earned over his career to achieve his dreams of making movies. Warburton is an actor we often tend to forget is incredibly gifted in more dramatic roles – while this film is a comedy, it required an actor who could play it like it was the most serious, sobering drama (which is precisely why people like Leslie Nielsen had such flourishing careers later on since they were always the straight man placed in the middle of outrageous situations). This was particularly important for this film, since The Woman Chaser is constructed as a pastiche of 1950s film noir, and rather than having an actor who would bring a modern sensibility, casting Warburton in the part helped the film seem even more like the genre it was paying tribute to. One can see how the actor is paying tribute to the likes of Robert Mitchum and Humphrey Bogart in his portrayal, playing Hudson like the quintessential conflicted noir protagonist, filled to the brim with rugged masculinity and deeply unsettling complexity that makes him such a profoundly interesting character. In a career that has seen him be shoehorned into mainly scene-stealing supporting parts, it’s heartening to see that Warburton can easily command the screen in a slightly more complex film, one that shows that he is both an incredible comedian and very gifted actor, ultimately proving to be the aspect that the film is most competent in exploring.

What many viewers don’t realize when watching The Woman Chaser is that this is not a film designed to be pleasant, at least not in the sense that we might expect from such a story – it is exceptionally funny, but it is a lot more stone-faced in the humour than we may normally expect. It is a frankly very hostile film, a bleak and often unforgiving satire that aims to evoke a level of discomfort that may be unbearable for some viewers. There is a reason behind this film has more of a cult following than it does mainstream appeal – it is much more challenging, and as a result of some questionable decisions in terms of how it defines its main character, it can sometimes keep many viewers at a distance. There is very little done throughout this film that can be considered traditionally appealing – the humour is so dark and subtle, that we often have to stop and wonder whether the film is a comedy at all, or if it is trying to be some very serious drama (although this doesn’t last long, since the motley crew of eccentric characters reminds us of the madcap energy that defines the film) – and for those who are not aligned with this kind of story and tone, it may be a bit of an ordeal, while those attuned to this brand of bizarre humour will find it very effective. However, the payoff that comes with the discomfort is more than worth the time we spend trying to make sense of this peculiar film.

Often extremely cold and cynical, The Woman Chaser is a challenging film, albeit one that knows exactly how to handle some slightly more unstable tonal shifts by simply being able to take a few risks. The result is a film that knows exactly how to handle some of the more controversial sensations that come about, especially when it is dealing with issues regarding gender roles (the women in the film are deliberately constructed as thin archetypes, very much in line with what we’d expect from the films of the era it is paying homage to), and conversely, the prominence of masculinity so rugged and forthright, it borders on toxic, which is a conversation that feels remarkably modern, even for a film that is a barely a quarter of a century old. The Woman Chaser is a bizarre film, and it’s difficult to look at it as being particularly noteworthy when it comes to unheralded classics – its more appropriate to see this as a hidden gem, a film that is deeply and without any remorse a hauntingly bewildering deconstruction of the film industry, made by someone who is almost entirely detached from the mainstream (and who seems to have nothing but pure animosity for his more traditionally successful colleagues), and thus is allowed to be as cynical and darkly comical as it needed to be to tell this story. Strange, disquieting and always very funny, The Woman Chaser is unlike any other film we’re likely to see, and whether you see this as praise or criticism is entirely dependent on how one feels about the overall message that exudes from every frame of this film.