Author: Jim McLennan

Bound To Vengeance

  By

★★
“Bound to disappoint”

boundforvengeanceI’ve been watching horror movies for over 30 years now, and appreciate that a certain amount of idiotic behaviour is to be expected. People will go into cellars. They will stand right beside the apparently-dead body of a masked killer. They will trip over those pesky tree roots. They will split up. That goes with the territory. But this entire film is predicated on a terrible decision which the lead character makes early, then refuses to reconsider, though the results clearly indicate its wrongness and she could change her mind at any time. Eve (Ivlev) has been captured by the psychopathic Phil (Tyson), but lures him into a trap by feigning unconsciousness, bludgeoning him with a brick and chaining hum up in her place. Escaping the house, she finds herself in the middle of nowhere, but gets the keys to the truck. At this point, what absolutely any sensible person would do, is high-tail it out of there, notify the authorities and let them take over.

But then, there’d be no film. Instead, she takes at face value Phil’s claim that he has a number of other houses, also containing kidnapped women [itself, a scenario that begs the question, “Why?” Wouldn’t it make more sense to have one large house with multiple rooms?]. Worse yet, she decides to make him lead her to them, so she can free the other captives. Even after neither the first nor the second go anything like as desired, Eve plunges on, apparently for no better reason than a touching belief that, hey, third time’s the charm. Of course, if she gave up, she (and we) would never find out the connection to her boyfriend (Kjornes), crudely telegraphed by the director through frequent inserts of shaky home-video footage of the two of them, interacting before her abduction. Mind you, nor would it allow for the moral to become “All men are bastards” rather than “This man is a bastard”; as is, there is not a single redeemable male character in the entire thing.

Credit is due for focusing almost entirely on the revenge side of the equation: we know Eve has been through hell by the point we meet her, and Cravioto doesn’t feel the need to have that aspect portrayed at length. Ivlev and Tyson are both decent in their roles, with the former demonstrating a steady growth in personal badassness that is adequately gratifying, and comes to a satisfactory conclusion with one final decision which actually does make sense. It is an enormous shame that everything leading up to the moment is based on a horrendously-flawed concept, which the film doesn’t attempt to acknowledge – hell, the worst genre film is still required to have a scene of someone waving their cellphone around and muttering, “No signal…” Even if some of the other aspects are laudable, as mentioned above, the overall result is irrevocably weakened, and won’t stick in your mind for any good reasons.

Dir: J. M. Cravioto
Star: Tina Ivlev, Richard Tyson. Kristoffer Kjornes
a.k.a. Reversal

The Assassin

  By

★½
“Like watching a Ming vase dry.”

AssassinI have seen worse action heroine films this year. But I certainly haven’t seen any which were more irritating. I confess, this is perhaps partly due to expectations, because all I knew about this one going in, came from the trailer, which made it look like an interesting piece of genre cinema. Well played, trailer: well played. You completely sold me a sow’s ear on that one. If I’d done some research on the director, I might have had a better idea of what to expect, for it turns out just about every frame of action the movie contains, is in the trailer. The rest is a disjointed mess of scenes, characters and plot-lines that seems to insult the audience’s intelligence by its pretense at being a coherent work. Even more irritatingly, the critics are lapping it up, judging by the gushing reviews I saw. Truly, do not believe the hype: neither Chris nor I were at all impressed by this steaming pile of art-wank cinema masquerading as entertainment. Some lush photography is about all this has going for it.

The plot sounds like it might have something going for it. In 9th century China, Yinniang (Shu) is a hitwoman, who hunts down and kills corrupt officials as required by her mistress, Jiaxin, who raised her from a child. After Yinniang fails to carry out a mission, due to the presence of a child, Jiaxin punishes her by making the next job to kill Yinniang’s cousin, Tian Ji’an (Chang), who was once also her fiance, and is now the governor of Weibo province. Needless to say, this does not sit well with Yinniang, and nor is it long before the old flame is (somewhat) rekindled. More than that… Well, I’m not able to say, because the film appears to delight in being obscure for obscurism’s sake. We cut into the middle of a fight scene, which after a few seconds reverts to a long-range shot, and then ends equally abruptly, with no explanation offered of who was doing what, to whom, or why. Call me old-fashioned if you like, both Chris and I still consider story-line at least somewhat important.

Apart from some nice cinematography – Hou goes against the grain, not opting to shoot in widescreen ratio – the only other positive thing I can find to say is Shu’s portrayal of Yinniang. Not so much during the dramatic moments, as during the (rare) action scenes, where her absolutely economy of effort is extremely effective. There’s an air of a Japanese samurai about her; rather than florid aerial battles, she swiftly disposes of most opponents in three or fewer strokes. If only the sequences between these has demonstrated such brevity and directness. Instead, it’s a confusing and unengaging mess, that annoyed me so much, I couldn’t even fall asleep, once I realized this was probably going to be irredeemable. Damn you, Hou. However, damn whoever put the trailer together, even more.

Dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Star: Shu Qi,  Chang Chen, Zhou Yun, Satoshi Tsumabuki

Deadly Sanctuary

  By

★½
“Razing Arizona”

deadlysanctuary“Feisty, flame-haired reporter, Kendall O’Dell is drawn into an evil web of conspiracy beyond anything she could have ever imagined when she accepts a position at a small newspaper in Castle Valley, Arizona.” Action heroine and local interest? Okay, I’m in. I shouldn’t have bothered though, because virtually from the get-go, this is cringe-inducingly bad. Nice though it is to see our state used, with scenes shot in New River and Black Canyon City, the script feels like it was written by someone who had never been to Arizona, and based it entirely on stereotypes.

Which is a bit of a surprise, because author Sylvia Nobel, who wrote both the source novel and co-wrote the screenplay, has apparently lived here since before I was born. So there’s absolutely no excuse for a world in which half the men wear Stetsons and there appears to be more lethal fauna than Australia. I’ve lived here for almost 15 years, and have never even seen a live snake in the wild: the heroine here (Kochan) virtually steps on one the first time she gets out of her car. About the only thing it gets right is that, yes, we locals do hate with a passion, the “snowbirds”, part-term winter residents who clog up restaurants and the freeways for us locals.

Not, under ANY circumstances, to be confused with the 1969 film in which Klaus Kinski played the Marquis De Sade, this sees O’Dell seeking to unentangle a web involving dead girls in the desert, an apparent police cover-up and a shady home for young runaways, all the while fending off the attentions of a rich adoption lawyer and a colleague at the paper. It certainly doesn’t help that five minutes in the company of Kendall would have any domestic abuse advocate reconsidering their position, she’s so irritatingly perky. The rest of the characters are one-dimensional cliches as well, and the storyline requires a staggering degree of belief suspension.

While the concept at its core is marginally plausible, it’s quite inconceivable that those involved would execute it in such a half-assed and incompetent way, behaving in a manner the writers of Scooby-Doo would reject as laughably implausible. Indeed, between its simplistic characters and Nancy Drew level plotting, the whole thing feels like a story written for an undemanding eleven-year-old.  Interestingly, seven years ago, Nobel was involved in an earlier effort to get her work filmed, only to see it melt down in a morass of shady financing. That piece also talks about the circuitous route Nobel had to take to get the O’Dell franchise going, including selling her romance novels at Walmart, and it’s a great saga of someone with a dream coming out on top. Unfortunately, based on this lettuce-limp adaptation, they should have left the idea buried, as the cinematic gods clearly intended.

Dir: Nancy Criss
Star: Rebekah Kochan, Eric Roberts, Paul Greene, Bobbi Jeen Olson

Bait

  By

★★★
“Tea and no sympathy.”

baitBex (Smurfit) and Dawn (Mitchell) are partners in a market-stall selling coffee and cake, and have dreams of opening a “proper” coffee-shop, but lack the necessary funds to do so. Traditional sources of money, such as banks, turn them down, so when Dawn’s new boyfriend, Jeremy (Slinger) turns out to be an angel investor, it seems too good an opportunity to be true. Which, of course, is exactly what it is, because Jeremy turns out to be the acceptable face of a very brutal loan-sharking operation. Even though they actually refuse his money before accepting it, he insists on them paying for his time, an amount which rapidly escalates out of control. It’s clear Jeremy will stop at nothing to extract payment, and demonstrates exactly that savagery, on both women, as well as their loved ones. Gradually backed into a corner, there’s only one way out for Bex and Dawn; be every bit as ferocious and merciless.

It probably helps that Smurfit and Mitchell have been friends since their drama school days, and their easy relationship comes over as entirely natural – though non-native British speakers may occasionally want to opt for subtitles! [Hell, I found myself straining my ears on occasion, having clearly been out of the old country for too long…] It’s very much a long, slow descent into hell, with the women on the receiving end for more than 80% of the movie before – and I trust this isn’t much of a spoiler here, given the film opens with a blood-stained Dawn slumped by a bath – finally getting to unleash their fury in a gore-drenched finale.

While certainly satisfying on a visceral level, this comes over as somewhat far-fetched, with neither woman having demonstrated any real tendencies for aggression; the “defending the family” approach only goes so far, not least because it’s the child-less Bex who goes furthest. Not that Jeremy doesn’t deserve it; Slinger comes over as a psychotic version of Simon Pegg, and it’s crucial that the film creates a villain who is both monstrous and believable. Be sure to stick around after the credits for a spectacularly splattery bit of claymation from maverick film-maker Lee Hardcastle, which is just glorious; it almost suggests a sequel where Bex and Dawn turn into a hardcore, British vigilante version of Thelma & Louise.

Must admit, I’d probably have preferred to see that, with the set-up here taking longer than necessary – for example, is there any reason we need to see quite so many scenes of Jeremy and his sidekick extracting payment? Still, the final payback is fully deserved, and gleefully shot by Brunt, leading into a coda which suggests a new, steely determination and “take no shit” attitude as a result of the hell through which the heroines have gone. It suggests an almost Nietzschean fable is being told, that what does not destroy you, in the end will make you stronger and help you achieve your goals. Seems more than slightly morally questionable, although maybe it’s just me!

Dir: Dominic Brunt
Star: Victoria Smurfit, Joanna Mitchell, Jonathan Slinger, Rula Lenska
a.k.a. The Taking

Autumn Blood

  By

★★
“The hills are alive…”

autumnbloodFeaturing some of the most luscious landscapes I’ve ever seen, unfortunately, that’s easily the best this Austrian film has to offer. While certainly ambitious, in its attempt to sustain an entire feature-length narrative with little more than a few lines of dialogue – and even those are largely superfluous – it brings home why talking movies talk. Too much here is unexplained, leaving you with an irritating series of unconnected events, whose motivation remains forever opaque.

It begins with two small children witnessing the death of their father in a shooting incident. Several years later, the girl, now a young woman (Lowe), she is attacked while bathing in a mountain spring by a lascivious local man. Her mother dies shortly after, leaving her and her younger brother (Harnisch) without protection, though she continues going in to collect their weekly allowance. The man shows up, with two friends, at their remote cabin, and the girl is assaulted again. A social worker (McCrudden) has been alerted to the childrens’ situation, but when she shows up and starts looking for them, the local men decide they need to silence all the witnesses to their crimes.  That won’t necessarily be as easy it seems.

Actually, I didn’t mind the lack of dialogue too much; in some ways, it was a refreshing antidote to a certain type of film (hello, Quentin Tarantino), which thinks its characters can never stop flapping their lips for a moment. However, it doesn’t feel like the (unfortunately-named) director Blunder, the script, or the actors, realized they need to step up their game in the absence of dialogue, and use non-verbal elements to tell the story instead. That never happens, and although the basics are never unclear, this isn’t the case for important elements, such as who kills their father, and why he returns to play a pivotal – indeed, bordering on deus ex machina – role at the end. The setting is deliberately kept ambiguous: what little dialogue there is, is in English, yet the backdrop is unlike any English-speaking country with which I’m familiar.

As noted, the performances are also problematic; Lowe likely comes off best, perhaps because she has most screen time, which allows her character to develop a little further. Certainly, no-one else gives anything even approaching a memorable portrayal, with neither the villains nor the social worker appearing to be more than plot points, on which things build to an extended, largely forgettable climax in the woods. I have to say though: as a commercial for the Austrian Tourist Board, it’s entirely successful, even if, going by this, the native residents may need to work on their interpersonal skills a bit. When the on-screen action loses your interest, as it almost certainly will at some point or other, you can just sit back and admire the Alps instead.

Dir: Markus Blunder
Star: Sophie Lowe, Maximilian Harnisch, Gustaf Skarsgård, Annica McCrudden

The Lady Assassin (1983)

  By

★★½
“Fairly whizzes past – though not necessarily in a good way.”

lassThe running time here is 86 minutes, but would probably be closer to two hours if they’d filmed the fights at normal speed. Because the undercranking – filming at a slower than normal frame-rate, so action looks quicker when played back at the normal speed – in this one is both copious in volume and excessive to its degree; I kept hearing the Benny Hill theme in my mind during the fight sequences. That’s a shame, because the performers here are talented enough they don’t need it, and the technique detracts from, rather than enhances, their skills. On the other hand, perhaps they needed to hurry things up to make room for the plot, because there’s quite a lot of that to fit into the film too. Let me try to summarize it.

There are two heirs vying for the imperial throne, Fourth Prince (Tony Lui) and Fourteenth Prince (fortunately, princes #1-3, 5-13 and 15+ are not apparently interested). To tip the balance his way, Fourth gets the assistance of dissident Lui Liu Liang (Ku), whose niece Si Niang (Leanne Liu) helps retrieve the emperor’s will, so #4 can doctor it and make himself the heir instead of #14. After taking over, Fourth exiles Fourteenth and “forgets” all his promises to Lui about not being so harsh an overlord. When Lui keeps showing up at court to remind Fourth of his broken oath, Fourth opts to silence his former ally permanently. But in so doing, he makes a mortal enemy of Si Niang, who joins forces with Fourteenth’s bodyguard, Tsang Jing (Chu) to take care of the usurper, who has hired some additional help of his own, in the form of a Japanese martial-arts master.

Despite the title, this is probably more of an ensemble piece, with Si Niang just one of many pieces to the jigsaw puzzle which is the plot, albeit one pivotal to proceedings. In particular, she’s the one who breaks into the Imperial Palace, locates the will’s secret hiding-place, and extracts it so Fourth can make himself the declared heir to the throne, thereby kicking off the events that follow. However, she is among a number of interesting female characters, also including Jade and Pearl, who assist Tsang Jing, and Lui’s daughter. While I have my previously-noted and significant qualms about the style of filming, which feels a good 15 years older than its actual 1983 date, I certainly cannot complain about the quantity of action, which is copious, and the people involved clearly know what they’re doing. The script is a bit of a mess though, with elements that just peter out, such as Fourteenth Prince, who must have had another engagement elsewhere. And the ending has to be among the most abrupt of all time, coming, literally, before the final body has even hit the floor. It occupies an uncomfortable position between old- and new-school Hong Kong cinema, and you can understand why the Shaw Brothers’ star was on the wane, and increasingly eclipsed by Golden Harvest.

Dir: Chin-Ku Lu
Star: Leanne Liu, Norman Chu, Tony Liu, Ku Feng

Peligro… Mujeres en acción!

  By

★★★½
“On Her Mexico’s Secret Service.”

peligrosIn the sixties, it seemed the world was awash in 007-inspired romps, with immaculate-dressed, heroic secret agents from every nation punching, shooting and sleeping their way through friends and enemies, with a quip and a raised eyebrow. One such Bond-wannabe was Alex Dinamo (Alemán), star of two Mexican movies, 1967’s SOS Conspiracion Bikini, and this sequel, made the following year, whose title translates as Danger! Women in Action. Which is where we come in. For despite stemming from a time and place not exactly noted as a bastion of advanced sexual liberation, it manages to be a damn sight more equal-opportunity than any Bond film of its time, or even since. For not only is the chief villain a woman – territory at yet still unexplored by 007 – Dinamo’s is given a sidekick, Maura (Alava), who is equally as competent, and he is happy to use the skill-sets of a number of other women on the battlefield here, without too much in the way of sexist one-liners.

As in its predecessor, the story sees Alex take on shadowy evil organization S.O.S, the Secret Organizational Service, who intend to carry out various terrorist acts in Central and South America, and exploit the resulting chaos. Initially, the target is a refinery in Ecuador, whose destruction will paralyze the country, and it’s only with the timely delivery of information from Barbara (Angely), that the location where the S.O.S. commandos will come ashore is discovered: it’s up to Alex, Maura and Barbara to hold them off in an extended (and quite well-staged) fire-fight. With that dastardly plot foiled, S.O.S’s evil overlady, Solva (Campbell) moves on to a plan to poison the water supply in Puerto Rico with a biological weapon. It’s up to Alex and Maura, this time with the help of an agent working undercover in S.O.S, to foil that plan, by launching an assault on the facility producing the bioweapon. Yeah, there might be some shooting here too. And explosion. Plenty of explosions.

Frankly, it’s strikingly progressive how gender is mainly a non-issue here, though Alex clearly has an eye for the ladies, whose costumes are designed to reveal as much as conceal. In particular, for a terrorist group, S.O.S. appear to be firm believers in affirmative action, with its top tier mostly consisting of women, all the way up to Solva. Similarly, Alex treats Maura, Barbara, etc. as competent individuals in their own right. The main problem is the stuff around the fringes, which is not as exciting as the makers seem to think. For example, there is a sequence of Barbara scuba-diving which seems to go on for ever; while I’m sure that kind of thing was novel and worth touting in the sixties (Thunderball, made a couple of years previously, had exactly the same problem, as I recall), it has not aged well at all. The film is also generally inordinately proud of production values which are no more than workmanlike. On the other hand – literally – you have stuff such as an S.O.S. operative with a gold artificial limb, whom we first see casually sharpening its edge on a whetstone. That’s still pretty cool, and as knockoffs go, this is better than most.

Dir: René Cardona Jr.
Star: Julio Alemán, Priscilla Alava, Elizabeth Campbell, Barbara Angely

Momentum

  By

★★★
“Momentum runs out.”

momentumAlex Farraday (Kurylenko) is part of a gang of jewel thieves, who have just pulled off a very successful heist in South Africa. Unfortunately, along with the diamonds, they have also acquired a flash drive which contains the plans of a rogue Senator (Freeman), to stage another 9/11 in order to generate wealth for him and his buddies. Needless to say, he’s not happy about it, and sends his minion, Mr. Washington (Purefoy), to retrieve the incriminating hardware and tidy up the loose ends – consisting of Alex and her associates.

That’s certainly a terser synopsis than usual, yet it’s more than enough, because this is a film that does not care too much for complexities of plot. It is a cinematic shark, in that whenever it stops moving, the audience’s interest dies. The good news is, particularly in the first half, that never happens, with Alex being pursued and harried by Washington and his minions [sub-henchmen?] from hotel room to the house of her former boyfriend and not-so-former partner, where a disgruntled wife is most unhappy by Alex’s unexpected phone-call, and on from there to an abandoned warehouse. This section is thoroughly entertaining, unfolding at a breathless and non-stop pace, and Kurylenko lives up to the action potential she showed in The Assassin Next Door, surviving on pure adrenaline, as well as her smarts and combat skills – for, it turns out, she has a long, shadowy past of such things.

The problems are much more in the second half, when Campanelli abandons a shamelessly breathless and kinetic approach, replacing it mostly with scenes in which heroine and villain banter awkwardly, while the latter threatens to inflict unspeakable tortures on her. This, needless to say, is rather less interesting and the film dissolves into a disappointing series of expected shenanigans, for which the drive is a MacGuffin. It doesn’t help that the whole “Senator” subplot is so woefully under-developed – I believe Freeman took on the role as a favour to the director – they really shouldn’t have bothered, instead just leaving both the contents and the shadowy owner unspecified.

I did enjoy Kurylenko, who also handles her action sequences creditably, with occasional upticks into impressive, though just about everyone else in the cast is more or less forgettable, and there isn’t enough new in the script to make it worthy of note. Campanelli is a long time cameraman, known in particular for his work with Clint Eastwood, and he apparently had to quit American Sniper to make this, his directorial debut. If the early going shows a great deal of promise, it appears he ran out of steam and ideas thereafter. Rather than building on its solid foundation, this is a film that seems content to stop any ascent there, admire the view for a bit, and coast downhill thereafter without expending significant further effort.

Dir: Stephen Campanelli
Star: Olga Kurylenko, James Purefoy, Morgan Freeman, Jenna Saras

Mythica: The Darkspore

  By

★★½
“Dungeons and Dragons. This time with a dungeon. And a dragon.”

mythicaThe original movie sat in my “pending” pile for so long, that the sequel showed up about a week after finally reviewing it. So I thought I might as well fast-track that one, and see how it compares. The answer is likely, not quite as well, much though it goes over the same, well-worn fantasy/D&D tropes. Our four adventurers from the first movie are still about, though haughty cleric Teela (Posener) now has a dead sister, which she blames Marek (Stone), the rapidly XP-gaining magic-user.  is warned by her mentor, Gojun Pye (Kevin Sorbo, in much the same kind of cameo are last time), that evil necromancer Szorlok is watching her, seeing the darkness which lurks within her soul.

Szorlok and sidekick Kishkumen are searching to reassemble the titular artefact, which was cracked to four pieces in a previous age. Cutting to the chase rather faster than the script here does, they capture our hereoes, along with newcomer Hairgel the dark elf [ok, not his actual name, but you’ll understand why I call him that when you see him] and hold Teela as a hostage, using her as leverage so her friends will retrieve the stone.

The film seems to have forgotten that it was the characters, and the interplay between them, which was its predecessor’s strongest suit. When we get that, it still shines, yet you’re well into the second half of the movie before the party is reassembled and gets going on anything resembling an actual adventure. Up until then, you get a rather boring set of navel-gazing, mostly based around Marek agonizing about whether she is being turned to the dark side, with a side-helping of angst from Teela.

The script also decides to inject romantic elements this time, with Teela falling for the group’s fighter, Thane (Johnson), and if you don’t like that one, why not try Marek and Hairgel’s blossoming relationship. It wasn’t just the 12-year-old boy in me who was wrinkling his nose up at all this sissy stuff. Things do perk up a bit more in the second half, when there is actually a quest to be competed, with the poison infecting Teela adding a useful “ticking clock” to proceedings. However, the battles were underwhelming, both against a pretty mediocre CGI dragon, and facing Kishkumen and his forces, whose main tactic appears to be to form a circle around their target, then attack one at a time. If you’ve seen a seventies martial-arts film, you’ll know the technique.

Not to say it’s worthless, with Marek’s character and powers developing nicely; she’s clearly more adept than she was first time out, when a puff of smoke was a challenge. With great power, as we all know, comes great responsibility, and I just wish the makers would put more effort into that aspect. Because if the planned five films come to pass. they’re going to need the balance to tilt away from tedious romance and whiny soul-searching, and back toward thrilling adventure.

Dir: Anne K. Black
Star: Melanie Stone, Adam Johnson, Jake Stormoen, Nicola Posener

Assassin’s Run

  By

★★★
“Killer dance moves.”

assassinsrunPrima ballerina Maya Mason (Skya) has it all: great career, billionaire oil-magnate husband Michael (Slater), loving daughter. But it all comes tumbling down when Michael is assassinated in an apparent coup d’etat of his business empire. The final piece is a set of documents, bearer shares that confer control of the company to whoever has them, and the players behind the predatory takeover bid, think Maya knows where these essential certificates are. She insists she has no clue, but is not believed, and to apply pressure, she is framed for drug trafficking and thrown into jail: not where anywhere wants to be, least of all a classical dancer. Worse is to follow, when they kidnap her daughter, but that’s a step too far, and Maya vows to use her very particular set of skills, skills she has acquired over a long career, to make her a nightmare for the people concerned. Or, if you want the one-word version: ballet-fu.

If you came into this expecting anything at all like the cover, you’re in for a surprise, as it is likely the most utterly misleading of all time. Neither Slater nor Hauser are actiony types at all in this; rare though it is for a film to undersell the action heroine element, for our purposes we’re all the happier with the end product! It’s certainly a new style, even if we remember that Michelle Yeoh, for example, learned ballet well before martial arts,  beginning at the age of four. It’s a shame it’s not put to significant use until the second half, starting with a prison fight after another inmate decides she wants Maya’s ring. This is finished off with a barrage of spin-kick after spin-kick after spin-kick, and is pretty awesome. There’s also a good brawl in a bathroom, but you’re left wishing for more, since it’s something deserving of greater use, and Skya’s flexibility is awesome. Yes, she can kick behind her head, thanks for asking.

She proves herself somewhat multi-talented here, also co-directing and singing the poignant song over the end credits – Chris decided she wants it played at her funeral, but if we played every song she had decided to use, it would be a three-week event… There are some aspects of the plot that don’t make a great deal of sense – why do the villains bother to frame Maya, when they could just kidnap her and torture the certificates’ location out of her? And, I have to say, her darling little daughter is much more whinily irritating, rather than the “adorable” for which the film is clearly aiming. Some of the other performances come over a little bit “English as a second language” – including Hauser as Maya’s former boyfriend – yet it moves along briskly enough, and Skya sells both the dramatic and physical aspects with enough credibility to make for a decent 90 minutes of fun.

Dir: Robert Crombie + Sofya Skya
Star: Sofya Skya, Christian Slater, Cole Hauser, Angus Macfadyen
a.k.a. White Swan