I don’t remember when a short film whet my appetite for a longer version as much as BROKEN, an action-packed thriller directed by Alex Ferrari. With only a 20-minute viewing time and an $8,000 budget, this little gem managed to draw me into the main character’s frightening plight, present a villain I loved to hate, and offer such professional visual effects I thought I was seeing a sequence out of a new full-length feature with similar quality to Once Upon a Time in Mexico, one of my favorite Robert Rodriguez films.

See how this grabs you -- a young woman (Samantha Jane Polay) wakes up from a dream involving a gunshot and a flash of light. Relieved that it’s only a nightmare, she goes into the kitchen for a drink of milk. But what happens there is worse than the dream. She’s taped and bound, then taken to a basement where a gang of cutthroats seem to have one purpose in mind: to kill her; but not before their snazzy-dressed leader (Paul Gordon) almost talks her to death, then gets his head banged by his victim who may not be so helpless after all. Finally, a figure dressed all in black enters the picture and triggers one of the most well-filmed shoot-‘em-up scenes of the year. The young woman thinks he’s there to rescue her, but is he? Finally, the scene switches to a hospital corridor where our heroine is being treated like a patient who needs to be sedated.

Am I alone in wanting to know more about what’s really going on here? I don’t think so. This 20-minute film presents quite a brain teaser. Fortunately, filmmaker Ferrari and his co-screenwriter Jorge F. Rodriguez are hoping to make a full-fledged movie out of this material, based on the well-deserved glowing reviews BROKEN has received.

This short film not only boasts first-rate production values, it also features excellent acting by the key players, especially Gordon -- who reminds me of the great Sergi Lopez in With a Friend Like Harry. Both actors excel at turning smiles into deadly psychological weapons. As Shakespeare warned us, “A man may smile and smile and be a villain.”   

Congratulations to Ferrari and his colleagues for proving that quality filmmaking needn’t cost millions of dollars. Here’s hoping we see more of their splendid work in the future.

(Released by The Enigma Factory Inc. Not rated by MPAA. For more information, visit the official website and click here to find out about the upcoming DVD.)