The Pez Outlaw, 2022.
Directed by Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel.
Starring Steven J. Glew.
SYNOPSIS:
Steve Glew spent the 1990s smuggling rare Pez dispensers into the U.S. from Eastern Europe, making millions of dollars. It was all magical until his arch-nemesis, The Pezident, decided to destroy him.
Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel’s deliriously entertaining documentary digs down deep into both a subculture and a one-of-a-kind entrepreneur you probably know nothing about. And despite ultimately being about a man who made and lost a fortune as a Pez dispenser magnate, The Pez Outlaw touts all the tension and entertainment value of a more straight-laced heist yarn.
“You are making a film about a loser,” one of the doc’s subjects tell us in its opening moments, referring to Michigan-born Steve Glew, who after working tirelessly as a machinist for 25 years to keep his struggling family afloat, became embroiled in the shockingly lucrative Pez dispenser trade.
Glew was directed to Kolinska, a European factory manufacturing Pez dispensers that weren’t commercially available within the United States. And so, he sought to operate within the legal safety of “grey market” goods by traveling to Kolinska, loading up on Pez dispensers, flying back home with them, and selling them at a massive markup.
This is naturally just the tip of the iceberg for an irreverent stranger-than-fiction tale that, despite the fanciful product at its core, feels structurally typical of so many crime thrillers and heist documentaries; an industrious man ends up in way over his head in an attempt to provide for his family.
You simply aren’t ready for the absolute shenanigans that follow, the bulk of which won’t be spoiled here. But it all begins with the curious politicisation of Pez branding around the world, with the dispensers sold in the U.S. having to pass rigorous personal approval from Pez America’s president – or “Pezident,” as he’s called here – Scott McWhinnie.
Steve was able to buy up Pez dispensers rejected for sale in the U.S. and transport them back home because Pez failed to register a necessary trademark filing with U.S. Customs. And so in a country where people will pay thousands of dollars for rare Pez dispensers, he soon enough found himself raking in a fortune.
As Glew visited other countries to scout more Pez factories, the Pezident grew desperate to stop his activities, ultimately becoming locked in a battle of wills with a man who eventually fashioned himself as, yes, the Pez Outlaw. Glew was servicing a demand that Pez themselves wasn’t meeting in the U.S., and so the Pezident’s response? To flood the market with them in order to crash the perceived value of the Outlaw’s stock.
With Steve’s wealth at an all-time high at this point, he becomes more protective and paranoid, utterly convinced that Pez has agents watching him, yet given Glew’s clear status as an unreliable narrator, it’s advised to take some of his more outlandish claims with a healthy pinch of salt. Regardless, it’s fun to listen to him tell the story that made him a legend in the Pez community, albeit one wrought with both euphoria and heartbreak.
At the end of the day, Steve’s quest was always to provide a quality life for his family, namely his two children Josh and Moriah and his wife Kathy, particularly once Kathy is diagnosed with Parkinson’s. But even when he attempts to legitimise his enterprise in ways seemingly beyond Pez’s reach, the petty vindictiveness of corporate America comes full bore in a way that’s not without dramatic irony.
And though the ending to Steve’s rags-to-riches-to-rags story may seem tragic, he takes solace in the fact that he has taken control of his life story thanks to the Internet, which has helped elevate him to folk hero status among Pez fandom. This doc just might endear him to those who simply love a good story too.
The filmmakers have been granted access to a wide array of colourful subjects here; as our lead, Glew is a gregarious, generous, and eccentric subject, but really only the first of several Pez obsessives paraded throughout. In addition to this, former Pez employees and members of Homeland Security are also interviewed, whose sober solemnity only further bolsters the comedy value of the piece.
It’s also abundantly clear the directors had a ton of fun creating the film’s plentiful B-roll, delivering visually dynamic recreations of many “scenes” even starring Glew himself. When he speaks of his love for Tom Clancy books, for instance, we cut to an ultra-cinematic aside of him reading a Clancy book while masked armed soldiers rappel from the rafters. Elsewhere there are gleeful homages to film noir, and a dazzling Willy Wonka-esque trek through a Pez factory.
The tone is kept mostly light, but there’s also a passing attempt here to address the perils of OCD and obsessive collecting run amok. One subject says that collecting anything in sufficient quantity is “more or less a disease,” and as frivolous as Pez collector culture might seem, there’s perhaps something inherently gross about flimsy pieces of plastic having so much perceived value.
Yet that does nothing to undermine the genius of Glew’s gargantuan efforts to discover a niche and service a demand. The film and his story are, as such, a tribute to the entrepreneur’s spirit, for better and worse. At once fascinating, troubling, and oft-hilarious, The Pez Outlaw offers a snappy 87-minute window into the extremes of collector culture.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
