Neil Breen: The Auteur of Our Time

Bureau Classification: Priority Auteur

This is the World Cinema Desk filing a comprehensive dossier on Neil Breen — a Las Vegas-based real estate agent and architect who has, since 2005, self-financed, written, directed, produced, edited, and starred in five feature films that operate on a logic system unknown to conventional cinema.

Neil Breen is not a bad filmmaker in the way that a student who fails an exam is a bad student. Neil Breen is a bad filmmaker in the way that an alien attempting to replicate human filmmaking based on intercepted satellite transmissions would be a bad filmmaker. The forms are recognizable. The execution suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of why those forms exist.

He is magnificent.

The Filmography

Double Down (2005)

Breen's debut. He plays Aaron Brand, a genius hacker and former government operative who lives in the Las Vegas desert surrounded by laptops, satellite dishes, and tuna cans. He narrates his own genius continuously. He may be responsible for 9/11. He can cure cancer. He drives between locations while voice-over explains that he is the most dangerous man alive.

The film consists primarily of Neil Breen sitting in the desert, operating laptops, and eating tuna from the can. Occasionally he drives somewhere. Sometimes stock footage of Las Vegas appears. A woman who may be his deceased fiancée appears as a ghost. She may not be a ghost. The film is unclear.

Runtime: 90 minutes. Laptops destroyed: 2. Tuna cans consumed on camera: 7.

I Am Here....Now (2009)

Breen plays a messianic alien being — possibly God — who arrives in Las Vegas to judge humanity. He is crucified. He has stigmata that appear to be made of metallic hardware store components glued to his hands. He punishes corrupt politicians and drug dealers by staring at them intensely until they die.

The title has four periods. This is intentional. The periods represent something Breen has never explained and no interviewer has successfully extracted an answer about.

Laptops destroyed: 1. Times Breen is shown shirtless for no narrative reason: 14.

Fateful Findings (2013)

Breen's masterwork. He plays Dylan, a hacker who can access every government secret by touching his laptop. He is hit by a car, dies, and is resurrected by a magical black rock he found as a child. His best friend's wife is an alcoholic who takes pills and drinks simultaneously in every scene. His own wife's subplot ends mid-film without resolution.

The climax: Dylan holds a press conference where he reveals government corruption. Every world leader watches on television. They all immediately commit suicide. The national anthem plays. The film ends.

Laptops destroyed: 3 (one thrown off a balcony with genuine fury). Instances of walking through doors that disappear: 2.

Pass Thru (2016)

Breen plays an artificial intelligence in human form who arrives on Earth to eliminate corrupt humans. He does this by making them disappear with a wave of his hand, accompanied by a visual effect that resembles someone being erased in Microsoft Paint.

The film eliminates approximately 300 million people. Breen's character does not express emotion about this. He sits in a desert. He uses a laptop. He is, once again, the most powerful being in the narrative.

Laptops featured: 4. Humans eliminated via MS Paint effect: 300,000,000 (estimated).

Twisted Pair (2018)

Breen plays identical twins: one good, one evil. Both are artificial beings created by a mysterious government program. The evil twin wears an eye patch made of what appears to be electrical tape. The good twin has a large cat. The cat receives more screen time than most supporting actors.

This is the first Breen film where the special effects suggest he has learned a new software tool. The green screen work is more ambitious. It is not more convincing.

Laptops featured: 6. CGI backgrounds that look like Windows XP wallpapers: Every exterior shot.

The Breen Cinematic Universe: Recurring Elements

The Laptop

Every Breen film features laptops as a primary narrative device. Breen's characters type on them with an intensity that suggests the keyboard has personally wronged them. Information appears on screen that has no relationship to what is being typed. The laptops are frequently destroyed — thrown from balconies, smashed against walls, abandoned in deserts — only to be replaced by identical laptops in the next scene.

The Desert

Breen lives in Las Vegas. His films are set in Las Vegas. Large portions of every film take place in the desert surrounding Las Vegas. The desert functions as an office, a spiritual retreat, a battlefield, and a dining room (the tuna cans). It is Breen's Yoknapatawpha County.

The Messianic Protagonist

In every film, Breen plays the most important being in the narrative. He is a super-hacker, a god, an alien, an AI. He has access to all information. He can heal the sick. He can punish the wicked. He has the physique of a man who does light cardio. None of these qualities are presented with self-awareness.

The Tuna

Neil Breen eats tuna from the can on camera more than any other actor in film history. This is a verifiable claim. The tuna appears in multiple films. It is always from the can. It is always eaten with a plastic fork. No explanation is provided.

The Shirtlessness

Breen removes his shirt in every film. This is not motivated by narrative context, romantic subplot, or weather. It simply occurs. The camera lingers. The audience processes.

Critical Assessment

Neil Breen is often compared to Tommy Wiseau, but the comparison is imprecise. Wiseau made one transcendent bad film and then struggled to recapture it. Breen has made five films, each operating at the same level of magnificent incomprehension. His consistency is his art.

Where Wiseau's badness feels accidental — the product of a man who doesn't understand cinema trying to replicate it — Breen's badness feels structural. He understands the components of a film: dialogue, cinematography, effects, narrative. He uses all of them. He uses none of them correctly. But he uses them with a precision that suggests he has a vision that is simply invisible to everyone else.

Whether Neil Breen is a genuine outsider artist or the most committed performance artist of the 21st century is a question this bureau cannot resolve. The evidence supports both interpretations. Neither diminishes the work.

Where to Watch

All five Breen films are available for purchase on his website. Selected titles appear on Amazon Prime Video and Tubi. Breen maintains control of his distribution with the same independence he maintains over every other aspect of his filmmaking.

He is, as of this dispatch, reportedly working on a sixth film. The bureau will monitor the situation.

Filed from the field. The desert is hot. The laptops are open. The tuna is ready.