This is a really terrific comedy, one of the best live-action shorts on the VancouverFilmSchool channel. Writer-director Aaron Beckum could fairly be accused of being too enamored with the style of Wes Anderson. The fonts and music are very Andersonian, and there's a zoom-pan shot that's an exact replica of a shot of Dirk Calloway in Rushmore. But Beckum brings a lot to the table and he can't be dismissed as a mere copycat.

There's a lot of energy in the writing of this film. Just look at the character names: Jonah Camberfield, Charlotte Strauss, Karl Marx. The situations are offbeat - in one scene, a character appears to be selling coffee out of the back of an ambulance - and the people in these situations are immediately endearing. The dialogue is so quotable that I could imagine this film developing some kind of cult following. ("My lady friend will have the duck.")

The hero is Jonah (Kurt Morley), an affable guy who wants to go out with the girl who works in the back of the ambulance, Charlotte (Kimberly Cameron). He's finally found his angle: a coupon for two-for-one sandwiches. ("That's practically half-price!") She agrees, but things get complicated when Jonah's friend Karl (Ian Atttewell) offers him advice and tells him to buy a new pair of pants. I'm not sure exactly what Karl does for a living - something involving a globe and a shopping cart. The scenes between him and Jonah are the most Andersonian in the movie, in that they present friendship as a strange form of rivalry.

Jonah follows his friend's advice and goes to see an old man to buy a pair of pants. I'm not sure how Jonah knows to go see the old man, but the movie is too funny and busy for us to stop and care about such things. The old-timer gives him a pair of "pants of exceeding consequence." He says the pants have rules, but Jonah doesn't really listen. He's just happy when he gets home and finds a bunch of $100 bills in the pockets. From then on, he's all about the Benjamins and quickly on the road to becoming a greedy, self-centered bastard.

The scene that follows is a comic show-stopper, combining great acting with a carefully chosen setting, in this case a restaurant with paintings of cowboys on the walls. Morley and Cameron have a terrific give-and-take. Even the waiter is perfectly cast. Pants of Exceeding Consequence is the work of a gifted and disciplined comedic filmmaker.