The Loss Adjuster Parent Guide

Insurance agent Martin Dyer (Luke Goss) is having what must be the worst day of his life. His wife left him, his job keeps getting stranger, and he’s managed to spill hot coffee on his suit. Martin doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s Christmas, and maybe the festive season will throw Martin’s life back together. On the other hand, one of his clients needs help extracting a rotting dead rat from under his floorboards, so maybe the holiday is just not going to go Martin’s way.

This is a hot mess of a movie. I am assuming that the editor and the writer only had a vague understanding of storytelling conventions with the result that The Loss Adjuster feels like you took two puzzles and mixed all the pieces together. The downside is that neither of the puzzles is particularly interesting, so even if you did manage to sort them out, you’d be bored to tears. Congratulations, you’ve won just under two hours of confused depression!

In all fairness, Martin is a genuinely unfortunate character, and Luke Goss is surprisingly sympathetic in the role. Norman (Guy Siner) is likewise tragic and eminently pitiable. The relationship between those two is one of the major themes of the movie, and easily the highlight. The problem here is that every single other aspect of this movie is insane. My personal winner is the semi-random time skips which are not obvious and which hugely confuse the plot – not that the plot needs any help, since it leaves about half the storylines unresolved.

Surprisingly, despite being almost unendurable for a screaming multitude of other reasons, the film doesn’t burden viewers with too many major content concerns. Although there are some sexual jokes (and one particularly bossy prostitute), no actual sexual activity happens on screen and dialogue is remarkably vague. There are a few instances of profanity, none of which is extreme, which is genuinely unusual in movies lately.

Of course, none of that matters because by the time any of that comes up, you’ll be functionally comatose in your seat and silently praying for oblivion. Look, not every movie is perfect, and we can all accept that, but few movies are this astoundingly bad. This is a string of odd encounters and bland platitudes, none of which are at all helpful for the tragic protagonist. 2020 is hard enough without subjecting yourself to this.