<p> The buddies at the heart of the offbeat indie comedy <em>A Bag of Hammers</em> are low-end LA grifters. Posing as valet parking attendants at a cemetery and clad in matching bowties and shorts, they steal the cars they pretend to park and pass the minutes in between theft with chess and pop culture trivia. They are an amusing case study in arrested development until they decide to intervene in the life of a precocious, neglected 12-year old boy next door. </p> <p>The mechanism for their illicit “adoption” of the kid would work better if played humorously; by deciding to treat it seriously, director Brian Crano strains suspension of disbelief. But despite its unevenness, <em>A Bag of Hammers</em> serves a rye slice of the platitudinous banality of contemporary society (“You speak in Michael Bolton lyrics,” one of the buddies tells his ex-girlfriend), the underbelly of despair at the bottom of American society and the power of compassion. The film's message: We are all being hammered by life but how we respond to the blows defines our character. Starring Jason Ritter and Jake Sandvig, <em>A Bag of Hammers</em> is out on DVD and Blu-ray. </p>
