'The Pez Outlaw' A Review

The Pez Outlaw is a documentary about Steve Glew, a factory worker in a small Michigan town who develops an interest then side business in collecting. This hobby becomes his full time occupation when he begins importing non-US market Pez dispensers from eastern Europe.

The movie is composed of talking head interviews(with the primary being Glew himself), limited archival footage, and relatively extensive re-creations/fantasy sequences with Grew playing himself. It's intriguing, told at a thriller-like pace, has fun nostalgia, some eccentric characters, kind of an underdog story. Crisply shot, smartly edited, it bangs along and it works.

Above and beyond the level of entertainment there are some gaps, some incongruous holes. Ultimately Glew is a dreamer and a hustler, kind of a Peter Pan, no shame in that, but there is attempts by him and by implication the filmmakers to spin the story as if he were some kind of legit businessman, further some kind of creative(particularly within Pez). There's nothing wrong with taking it to big corporations, undermining them and putting money in your pocket. Especially now, there's not a ton of big business defenders outside of the rich and politicians bought and paid, but what's odd is in the third act there seems to be an effort to legitimize Grew in a way that is odd and quite frankly does not match with the facts as they are conveyed previously. There's also Grew's mental health which clearly has been a challenge for him his entire life, has had a profound effect on his family, and which the movie kind of glances over in a way that doesn't really acknowledge it and places it firmly in the back seat.

Both those criticism are ultimately more just irregularities in the third act, they don't really effect the movie enjoy-ability as a whole, but these things are obvious and the filmmaker(presumably deliberately) didn't really investigate them simply accepting Grew's version of events and perspective(maybe that was his price for participation). Which is fine, it is a movie about him, narrated by him, with him starring as himself. Its not a surprise. Its just a missed opportunity, to get below the surface and investigate Grew as an actual subject rather than a somewhat goofy, and unquestionably entertaining, self-mythologizer.

Slick, well paced, diverting if unconvincing in it's attempts at real insight.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Rent It.