Electric Slide

Tristan Patterson’s Electric Slide is based off the real-life story of Eddie Dodson, a man who executed over sixty bank robberies in the Los Angeles area in the 1980s. The film premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival in New York and screened at the 67th Festival De Cannes in South France. 

Eddie Dodson (Jim Sturgess) is a fashionable, flirtatious, furniture salesman who is unable to stay out of debt. He takes out a loan from the bank, borrows money from the notorious Roy (Christopher Lambert), and then proceeds to extend his credit line to pay back Roy. 

He forms a relationship with the chic Pauline (Isabel Lucas), who always waits in his car for him after a robbery. With Eddie’s appeal to expensive suits and Pauline’s appeal to designer shoes, Eddie’s lack of business from his furniture shop and never-ending debts do not suffice. After one successful and clean robbery, robbing banks just comes naturally and easily for Eddie.

Eddie has a distinct way of robbing banks. He heads towards a female bank teller in his neatly-pressed suit, matching fedora, dazzling carnation near the pocket, and statement sunglasses. First, he compliments the teller or points out a minor detail to make the teller feel noticed. Then he hands over a note that states he is robbing the bank. But at the end of each note, he always includes an “XO”. Once the teller reads the note and looks at Eddie, a gun is pointed directly at her. After the teller hands over the cash and before Eddie leaves the bank, he repeats his initial compliment to the teller.

After multiple successful robberies, Eddie and Pauline begin to get too comfortable and careless, which leads to their mistake. Eddie is unable to make it to the getaway car with Pauline in time, which leads to him ditching the standard plan and Pauline as well. Ultimately, Eddie’s actions get him to a situation where he cannot flirt his way out to safety.

Since the story is set in the 1980s in Los Angeles, the sets exhibited are captivating and retro. Patterson uses the 80s backdrop to its full potential, with not only the scenes, but the costume and make-up too. The always present carnation on Eddie’s statement outfit is noticeably bright especially since it contrasts his suit.

Expanding on the topic of fashion, fashion is a motif in Electric Slide. It is undoubted that Eddie is a well-dressed man especially during this era. He uses his fashion senses to ease his way in some of the tellers’ hearts. In one instance, he tells the bank teller that he “loves how the bananas hang off her ears”, in reference to her cute accessory. Women love to to be noticed and even if it is just something minor as their earrings, a compliment from a stranger, better yet a fashionable man, can make her day and her heart flutter.

Eddie is not the only character with a trendy style. A notable character who dresses fabulously is Pauline. One of the two cops who are after the “gentleman bank robber” find a shoe that belongs to Pauline and infer that the man they are after has a female companion with him, who has expensive taste since the shoe was designer. That shoe reveals Pauline’s materialistic characteristic trait and relates to Eddie’s motivation to keep robbing banks, which is to buy Pauline nice things.

What makes Electric Slide more than just a story of a man robbing banks in the 1980s is Jim Sturgess’s alluring acting. Sturgess puts on a superb portrayal of a criminal who enjoys the finer things in life and uses his attractiveness effectively.

The cops were able to arrest Eddie due to parking violations. The bank teller, which happens to be the woman with the banana earrings as well as the teller who was robbed by Eddie twice, had the chance to identify who the “gentleman robber” is at the police lineup. She kindly requested that Eddie, who was number four, say the line “give it to me” like how he did when he robbed her. She clearly knew that number four was Eddie but she directly said “I am sure it is not him” to the cops to protect a man who held her at gunpoint, twice, and who made her eyes gleam with awe, twice.

Electric Slide shows that infatuation can make people do wild things. When Eddie is surrounded and asked why he is doing such things, his reply is simply: “I just wanted to get my girl a nice present”. Granted that Eddie is head over heels for Pauline, he also aims to charm everyone else, including the audience and myself in which he succeeds.

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CREDITS

Writer: Tristan Patterson

Director: Tristan Patterson

Producer: Kirk D’Amico, Christine Vachon, Hans Ritter, Eric Eisner

Main Cast: Jim Sturgess, Isabel Lucas, Chloe Sevigny, Patricia Arquette, Christopher Lambert 

Running Time: 95 minutes