Filmmaker Patrick Dawson had already made two successful studio-financed comedies (The Dragon Boys and Ben Cleveland and The Baker Initiative) before striking out on his own to make the melodramatic May Day. After seeing the film, it makes one wish he’d stayed with formulaic comedies, because drama is not Dawson’s forte.

The film follows the labor revolt of a group of workers at a factory in Detroit. James Renfroe portrays Troy, a metal worker, who leads the revolt. Renfroe, who’d worked with Dawson on “Dragon Boys,” is completely wrong for the role, walking around with a smirk plastered on his face. It works for comedies, but in a drama, it seems wholly out of place and almost inappropriate.

The rest of the cast doesn’t fare much better. Peter Post looks miserable as Clark, Troy’s best friend and co-worker. Post had a good reputation on Broadway before taking the role, but after the disastrous results that made it on-screen he could only get supporting roles. Melinda Cruthirds plays Troy’s girlfriend Lisa and she’s totally underwhelming. She shuffles around in the background, given almost nothing to do. The same can be said for the beautiful Dina Pemberton’s character Erica, another of Troy’s co-workers and someone who’s set up as a potential love-interest for Troy, who is having trouble with Melinda. None of these characters are given much to do and the way Troy incites his fellow workers to revolt isn’t just unbelievable, it’s downright laughable.

The main problem here lies with Dawson’s script. The characters are wholly unrealized and the situations they find themselves in seem cookie-cutter. Dawson tried to inject real emotion and drama into his script but it falls hilariously flat. The speech that he’s given to Troy to stir up the workers is laughable. When Renfroe says, “We must rise up, my friends, and show these fat cats who’s in charge!” with his trademark grin plastered across his face, my television almost got a foot through it.

Dawson’s unskilled at filming a dramatic movie, not understanding that there’s a different between shooting comedy and shooting drama. He attempts to make up for this by desaturating the color palette and giving the film a grainy look. The camera work by Dawson’s friend Skip Patterson isn’t terrible, but it’s handheld and overly shaky and gives the riot scenes a stomach-churning quality, which perhaps they were going for, but it seems unnecessary.

There’s not much to say about May Day because it fails on almost every level. The actor’s speak their lines with either no urgency or with too much. The direction is flat and uninspired and one wonders what happened to Dawson between “Ben Cleveland” and this film. The riot sequences are slightly effective, but since it’s difficult to buy Troy’s ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy, the scenes come off as overly staged and not at all realistic, which is most likely what Dawson was hoping for.

It’s hard to recommend May Day for any reason. It’s not even on the “so bad it’s good” level. It’s just boring and plodding and incredibly tedious, something a movie about a riot should never be.