Skills Like This

In the movie “Skills Like This,” 25-year-old Max Solomon would like to be a writer, but has to admit he’s just not going to make it with his pen when his play, “The Onion Dance,” meets with a catastrophic reaction in its opening performance. His best buddies are Dave, who brownnoses his way to a monumentally boring mid-level sales job with no future, and Tommy, a slacker best suited for hanging out in a coffee shop and being funny. With career options like these in front of him, Max commits an impulse bank robbery—of an absolutely unique, but effective, sort. Holding a gun on his own head, he relieves interested teller Lucy of the cash in her register and rejoins his disbelieving but admiring friends. In the next three days, more unusual robberies happen and a compelling romance blooms between Max and Lucy while Dave and Tommy have their lives equally changed and Max has to question his newfound success. “Skills Like This” is a hilarious, original and freewheeling comedy with a real heart, winner of a well-deserved Audience Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival.