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A Town Called Panic Movie Review

A Town Called Panic is a 2009 Belgian animated comedy film directed by Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar. It is a very charming movie.

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“Have you seen the state of my tractor?!

Come on animals!“

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Cowboy and Indian’s only wish was to come up with a brilliant idea for Mr. Horse’s birthday, but when their plan ends up in utter disaster, they’ll need to travel the world and back to make things right again. This is a very interesting film that has its adventurous elements, but is above all else a comedy. The comedic style here heavily hinges on slapstick, though the absurdist and surreal elements are both present as well.

Most of the humor comes from the voice acting, which is both terrific and hilarious as the voices are ridiculously high-pitched that you cannot help yourself but laugh. The characterization is solid for this type of movie. This trio of an Indian, a cowboy and a horse was an ingenious idea that really worked and following these friends on their wacky adventures was just so much fun.

Whenever you have a film that is so simplistic, you cannot help but think that a short form medium would have sufficed better than the feature format. This film clearly belongs in that camp as it’s so hilarious in the beginning that eventually it loses some of its steam when similar gags are repeated almost ad nauseam. Thankfully, the runtime of 76 minutes wasn’t too staggering of a number, but something along the lines of 50 or 60 would have fared better.

A Town Called Panic’s biggest accomplishment is obviously its animation. The French and the Belgians are famous for their animation and this is another one of their impressive achievements. This is stop-motion animation consisting of toys basically coming to life. Their movements are surely crude, but they fit the comedic style of the movie, resulting in a very humorous visual display.

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The backgrounds are also lovely to look at, perfectly accompanying the second half’s more adventurous escapades. The score and the directing are both terrific, though the pacing obviously left a lot to be desired. The movie is surprisingly epic in scope while consistently being very amusing. The dialogue is also pretty funny, though it could have been funnier and more extensive in the aforementioned second half.