Setting up stall in the crowded rom-com market is a difficult task.

The problem facing writer/director Alex Ranarivelo is how to make your commentary on relationships speak to the audience; to make your voice heard above the myriad other groups of pretty, commitment phobic thirty-somethings trying to work their lives out.

Ranarivelo’s answer is simple: character. And this is how he, and the film, succeeds.

Knuckle Draggers is a 2009 film from Partners in Crime Films and it is an excellent way to spend an evening. Do not give in to your preconceptions of Indie Romance(TM) and let this charming film work its spell. It is surprising because it succeeds in building up the prejudices and stereotypes inherent in the genre before pulling the rug from under our feet. Don’t get me wrong – the … READ MORE

You know, it’s refreshing when a film actually tells it like it is, and I can’t remember seeing one that more clearly defined the truth about relationships between men and women than Knuckle Draggers.  To start, here’s a quick description of the film from IMDB, written by the film’s writer and director, Alex Ranarivelo…

“Knuckle Draggers” takes a realistic, but comic look at how the behaviors of men and women have evolved very little since the caveman times. When Ethan, the needy nice guy, is dumped by his fiancee, he asks his misogynist older brother Kyle to help him win her back. Kyle tries to teach Ethan how to act like “a real man” and to never put a woman on a pedestal. Repulsed by his brother’s harsh views on how to treat women, Ethan ignores his advice and ventures out into the dating world, where he slowly realizes that everything Kyle says seems to be true.

That description gets to the core of the film, but it doesn’t tell you everything.  There’s actually a … READ MORE

Fresh off his “Best Actor” award at the Reel HeART International Film Festival in Toronto this past Saturday night (June 27th), Knuckle Draggers Producer/Actor Paul J. Alessi was gracious enough to take the time to answer a few questions for our readers in this exclusive interview Q&A. Alessi plays the co-lead role as Kyle, an abrasive divorced man who offers his “expert” advice on relationships to his struggling brother Ethan (Ross McCall).

Knuckle Draggers is an independent film with a talented ensemble cast (undoubtedly several future stars of film will come out of this group) that is currently… READ MORE

As long as there have been movies, there have been movies about relationships. One of the very first films to play for an paying audience was The Kiss, which was a 47-second smooch made in 1896. It was quite controversial at the time.

Obviously, the form handles love in broader terms now, with romantic comedies and dramas of every stripe, and even the majority of action films have some love interest.

It does make the world go ’round, they say.

Working outside the mainstream, the adult romantic comedy Knuckle Draggers examines men and women, but mostly men. In particular, how men work in and out of relationships, how they deal with women, and how their attitudes can be shaped by their male friends.

Ethan (Ross McCall) has just been dumped. His beautiful girfriend (Jennifer Alden) is tired of waiting for the life she wants, even though Ethan is working towards a dream she should have long since understood. He’s devastated but his brother Kyle (Paul J. Alessi) sees this as an opportunity to … READ MORE

Knuckle Draggers is an independent movie from Producer/Actor Paul J. Alessi and Director Alex Ranarivelo that made its world premiere film debut on April 26th, 2009, at a sold out Newport Beach Film Festival. The movie won two “Rising Star” awards at the DelRay Beach Film Festival, including Outstanding Feature by a New Filmmaker/Producer and Best Close-up in a Feature Film. Tonight (June 27th), the movie showed at the ReelHeART Film Festival as an official closing night film. Theatrical release and home video release dates are yet to be determined

With a diverse and talented ensemble cast, Knuckle Draggers presents the same conventional plot about the differences between the two genders. Men are simple creatures that have not evolved much beyond caveman times. They still just want sex and lots of it. Women on the other hand, need to commuicate, and need security. Relationships are easy, if you just understand one thing… READ MORE

Knuckle Draggers is a humorous but very real look at the state of modern male-female relationships. Written and directed by Alex Ranarivelo, produced by Paul J. Alessi, and co-produced by Amie Barsky and Baptiste DeRivel, the film is a relationship movie from a male perspective. The story follows Ethan, an all around nice guy who gets dumped because he wasn’t able to provide his fiancée with the plush, stable life her friends were living. Desperate to get her back, he seeks help from his older brother Kyle, a tough talking sexist who seems to have a way with the ladies. Kyle gives Ethan a crash course on women and dating much to the disgust of some of Ethan’s female friends. Just when it seems Kyle’s misogynistic theories are about to prove themselves true, things take an unexpected turn and… READ MORE