Category: Review

Wild Justice, by Kelley Armstrong

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Literary rating: ★★★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

With this 2013 novel, Armstrong brings her original Nadia Stafford trilogy to a satisfying conclusion (although the two later novellas carry on the story in a rewarding way). Again, six months have passed since the previous installment, so our chronological setting is the latter part of October, 2007.

By the end of the second novel, Nadia had recognized that her true romantic feelings are for Jack. But she also concluded that her taciturn and seemingly unemotional mentor didn’t return them (although readers might be less sure of that). So in the intervening months since, she and Quinn have added a sexual component to their long-distance relationship (they get together about once a month). For readers who view sex as expressive body language for a total self-giving in life-long love and fidelity, it’s not hard to predict that introducing it into a situation where both parties profess no hurry to be committed (and one is in love with someone else) is likely to end in emotional disaster.

That’s what happened here, about a month ago,with Quinn wanting to move in the direction of engagement and marriage and Nadia not willing to, leading to a messy breakup that left him very hurt and her “feeling like [vulgarism deleted].” :-( On top of that stress, when this book opens, she’s in rural Michigan on a job (of the kind that she doesn’t advertise). That quickly results, though through no fault of her own, in a traumatic event which has her on the point of meltdown. But before long, she’s in for a moral and emotional ordeal which will make her present distresses look relatively mild.

Both previous novels have made us aware of the formative event of Nadia’s life, which happened when she was only 13. That was the night she and her beloved 14-year-old cousin Amy (with Nadia along because, as usual, she was trying to keep the headstrong older girl out of trouble) got taken to a lonely woodland cabin by a budding psychopath in his early 20s named Drew Aldritch. Nadia was able to escape and run for help, but Amy still ended up raped and killed. At the trial, Nadia wasn’t called to testify; and it didn’t help that Amy was a bit of a “wild child” with a reputation as a flirt.

The defense exploited that to claim that the sex was “consensual,” and that Aldritch strangled his victim to death “accidentally.” So the jury acquitted him. (Yes, this is fiction; but sadly, even in real life, there are jurors who would actually be that idiotic.) He left town immediately; and Nadia hasn’t seen him since. But the horror of the tragedy, and the survivor’s guilt, has stayed with her for 20 years, shaping her into the adult woman she became, and leaving her with intermittent nightmares from which she still wakes up screaming.

Jack knows something about the baleful influence of teenage trauma (and we’ll learn something, in the course of this book, about his past and how it shaped him –our leading lady here isn’t the only character with painful baggage). Early on, Jack discloses that, on his own initiative, he’s tracked Aldritch down to where he’s now living in Ohio under his latest alias, and working, of all things, as a small-town cop –and there’s good reason to believe that his behavior and proclivities haven’t changed for the better in the ensuing decades. So Nadia now has to decide what to do with this knowledge. Whatever happens, this trip down Memory Lane is not going to be a pleasant stroll; and it will prove to be a dark, harrowing, twisty and dangerous one, with more than one major surprise.

As usual, there’s a genuine mystery (actually, more than one) at the heart of this tale; and solving it, and surviving to the point of solving it, will be a challenge. (Luckily, Nadia’s tough and resourceful.) In terms of style, this book is much of a piece with the preceding ones in most respects, including the language issues. Again, there’s no explicit sex, but there is some unmarried sex that takes place, and some scenes are steamier than some readers might want. Romance, and related angst, doesn’t take over the plot, but it plays a more important role than it has up to now, and there will be a significant development in that area. (The books definitely are best read in order.) At one point, a character imparts a crucial piece of information that later developments show that he wouldn’t have known, but that’s the only logical slip; in the main, the plotting is impeccable. For any readers who liked the first two books, this one has to rank as a must-read; and I don’t believe any of them will be disappointed with it!

Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publisher: Penguin Group; available through Amazon, both for Kindle and as a printed book.
A version of this review previously appeared on Goodreads.

El Monstro del Mar!

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★★★
“Catch of the day.”

I could have sworn I’ve seen this before, but a search of the reviews suggest otherwise! This is an Australian pastiche of a couple of different things. Perhaps the most obvious influence is Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, in that it’s the road misadventures of a trio of delinquent women – two brunettes and a blonde. The leader, Beretta (Scarlet) looks something like a cross between Tura Satana and Bettie Page. We’re less than ten minutes in before their psychopathic nature is revealed, in the brutal killing of two men who stop to offer them roadside assistance – I did like the way the film, shot in black-and-white to that point, explodes into full colour when the violence starts.

They turn out to be hitwomen, hiding out in a beachfront house after completing their latest job, where they cross paths with – further nods to Pussycat – a grumpy old misogynist in a wheelchair, and an innocent young girl, Hannah (Capri). But where it diverges significantly from the Russ Meyer classic is… Well, as you’d expect from the title, the presence of a sea-monster, whose hunger has been impacting the town for decades (including Hannah’s parents).. Yeah, I don’t remember one of them in Pussycat. Then again, that did take place in the desert. It doesn’t actually get any screen time until the half-way point, and the film is quite chat-heavy to that point, save one blood-drenched flashback sequence.

While it’s undeniably a low-budget creature across the board, the atmosphere, assisted by some good use of filters and colour in general, has a Lovecraftian feel to it that was unexpected and well executed. In the second half, there is an increasingly gloomy and oppressive feeling, as the trio stumble across a series of body parts, eventually losing one of their own to the monster, while Hannah rebels against her grandfather. Inevitably, it all ends in the surviving duo taking the fight to the monster and its many tentacles, assisted by Hannah, after they learn the truth about what has been going on. It’s a very moist battle, with body fluids flying on both sides, though I was a bit disappointed we never get to appreciate the full scope of the beast.

It does make for a rather awkward combination, with the two halves of the movie never quite meshing. I kept expecting the fact they were hitwomen would show relevance, but it never amounts to anything: they could simply have been tourists on a seaside vacation. The same goes for the apparent wild swings in era; the cars at the start look sixties vintage, but have very eighties cassette players in them. and any period feel is all but discarded on arrival by the water. However, even if the elements here never go together as you feel they should, they work well enough on their own. If you’re in the mood for a genre fondue, which throws everything into the same pot, you could do worse. Scarlet may not quite be Tura Satana, but then – nobody is.

Dir: Stuart Simpson
Star: Nelli Scarlet, Kyrie Capri, Karli Madden, Kate Watts

Loss Prevention

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★★★½
“Missing this would be your loss”

After a series of recent films which… well, let’s just say, left a little to be desired, it was a real palate-cleansing pleasure to encounter this. Oh, make no mistake: this is no classic. But, considering the budget was supposedly under $20,000, this operates within its limitations very nicely. The makers sticks to what they can do, and what it does, it does more than adequately. In particular, the movie is populated with a good number of interesting characters, that are fun to watch. The central one is Nik (Uhl), a young woman who dropped out of college and is now scraping by, working behind the bar at The Soggy Weasel, the pub belonging to her father (former wrestler Snow).

However, her slackerish lifestyle is rudely interrupted when one patron drinks too much, and has to be separated from his keys. Unfortunately, the key-chain also holds a flash drive of industrial espionage data, which he was supposed to hand over to Boland (Wells), the operative of a rival company. Boland is unimpressed, and will go to any lengths to retrieve it, providing the bottom line is deemed sufficiently profitable. Fortunately for Nik, also on hand is Brooke (Albert), a thoroughly competent operative of the company who is the data’s rightful owner, and she takes on the defense of Nik and her father. Not that Nik is averse to getting her own hands dirty, as things turn out.

It does take a little while for things to kick off, as we get introduced to the characters. Nik is more than slightly sarcastic, so can only be respected as such, and also a thoroughly unrepentant lesbian – both combine in an entirely unrepeatable comment about breath mints. But Hollywood could learn a lot about depicting sexual identity from this, which makes absolutely no attempt at moral posturing in this area. Instead, it’s far too busy providing a fast-paced gallop around the city of Louisville, ending up in Brooke and Nik mounting an assault on the headquarters where Boland is holding her father hostage. Yet there’s a twist or two to come, with things not quite ending in the massive firefight you’d expect – another way in which this manages to confound expectations.

In its depiction of corporate warfare, this is rather sophisticated for a low-budget action flick. In particular, Boland’s actions are entirely determined by an accounting of the expected profits and loss. For instance, is it cheaper to buy someone off, or kill them, with all the resulting collateral expenses? It absolutely is not personal with him, just a question of what will balance the books most profitably. The same is true, to a slightly lesser degree, for Brooke – if I heard a late line of dialogue correctly, her surname in the film is Shields! This is an approach which plays into the unexpected finale, when Nik comes up with a solution which satisfies everybody. Well, almost everybody… This has not one, but two, action heroines who are fun to watch, and was considerably better than I expected

Dir: Brian Cunningham, Matt Niehoff
Star: Abisha Uhl, Al Snow, John Wells, Lauren Albert

Suga Babies

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★½
“The drugs do work”

As usual, I begin with the normal disclaimer, that I’m about as far from the target audience as you could imagine. For this is an inner-city story about a drug war between three rival gangs in South Carolina: the Guardians, the Dynasty and the GeeChees. That said, however, there have been other films, with not dissimilar themes, which I have enjoyed. Most obviously, I am not the target audience for Pam Grier’s seventies output either. But those still kick ass. Even among the modern entries, there have been ones like Candy, which have felt authentic in their depiction of urban life. This, on the other hand, feels more like a no-budget hip-hop video.

About the main positive is that nobody makes a particular fuss about the Guardians being an all-girl gang, under the loose leadership of Naomi (Mott). They’re just part of the landscape, and everyone accepts that. The cause of the war is a new drug called sugar. In an odd twist, this actually makes people who take it better. We are told it literally cures cancer. I genuinely LOL’d at that. However, the interest of the authorities is limited to a spokesman for Big Pharma, who expresses concern at the street muscling in on “their” turf. It might have been interesting if it turned out Big Pharma had secretly released the drug to the GeeChees for distribution, as a test of its effectiveness. Sadly, not much is done with the concept, with this largely being an excuse for more black-on-black crime.

Indeed, that social crisis is expressly referenced during one of the multiple sequences of “The Buzz”, some chat-show. These really add very little, and the same goes for the supposed “courtroom” scenes. As well as being woefully unconvincing, I don’t think I ever worked out quite who was on trial, or for what. It’s all horribly disjointed, for example a lengthy scene that’s just multiple people picking up drugs from a motel room. Add in sequences which genuinely are no-budget music videos, and the dramatic pickings became painfully thin. There’s just one scene that has any impact. Mouse (McCoy) gets picked up by the Guardians and is found to be dealing sugar for the GeeChees. Her impassioned explanation that she did so because sugar helped her family, is certainly the movie’s emotional high-point.

According to the IMDb, the director had made eight feature films since her first in 2020. That’s an admirable work ethic, to be sure. But I can’t help thinking that churning out fewer movies might lead to an increase in their quality, because this definitely feels rushed, in almost every aspect. Maybe this is what the target audience wants? But it would be patronizing to believe their standards can be satisfied with this kind of thing. On the other hand, this wasn’t even the worst thing I watched today (hello, Battered), at least reaching a bare minimum of technical competence. However, that’s scant praise for any movie.

Dir: Felicia Rivers
Star: Diamond Mott, Patrice Jennings, Shakeela Koffey Scott, Samantha McCoy

Wentworth

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★★★★
“Sheilas behind bars.”

Back in the eighties, there was an Australian women-in-prison soap opera called Prisoner Cell Block H. [It was called Prisoner on its home turf, but was renamed in the UK and US, to avoid confusion with The Prisoner] It ran for eight seasons, totalling 692 (!) episodes, and achieved a fair bit of cult status, mostly through late-night screenings on TV. Much of its reputation was based on “so bad it’s good” elements, such as the wobbly sets; a review calls it, “one of the most bizarre, violent, lesbian-fetishy-heart-warming dramas ever created.” The show concluded its run in 1986, but was never forgotten.

More than 25 years later, the concept was rebooted in 2013 as Wentworth, and enjoyed a renaissance. While also running for eight seasons, rather than trash (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you!), this version proved to be remarkably well made. It likely helped that the remake’s production schedule here was rather less frantic, ending at exactly 100 episodes last October. The show is currently ranked by the IMDb in the top 250 TV series of all time, and was sold to over 90 countries, achieving a worldwide audience, thanks in part to its distribution on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It spawned local remakes in a number of countries. The Dutch was the most successful, running for four seasons, but Belgium, Germany and Turkey also took the show and recreated it. [Here is as good a place as any to mention that back in 1982, there was a male spin-off of the original show called Punishment. Though it lasted only one season, the cast included some guy called Mel Gibson…] Indeed, the Turkish one, known on Netflix as The Yard, was reviewed here in August 2020. That review began, “I really must get round to reviewing Wentworth.” And eighteen months later, here we are…

It’s a show I’ve thought about covering on a number of occasions over its run, but now that it’s finished, I feel I can finally do it justice. I definitely can’t argue with the acclaim it has received. For Wentworth features a slew of extremely strong female characters, including one of the most memorable villainesses in TV history, and maintained a high degree of dramatic quality from beginning to end. That’s rare for a series; even classics like Buffy dropped off after a certain point, with commercial motivations typically surpassing artistic ones. Not so here, with the eighth series virtually as strong as the first.

One element, which it does share with its predecessor, is that the setting is the “star”, rather than any performer. I think this certainly helped contribute to its longevity, and sustained the show’s freshness. If one of the actresses began to feel jaded, and wanted out, their character could be replaced by another. The prison scenario meant there were always new arrivals potentially coming in, and scope for departures too, without excessively disrupting the overall structure. If you look at many of the ultra-long running shows, e.g. Dr Who or the many incarnations of Law and Order, they have a similar ability to rotate their cast seamlessly.

Not to say there weren’t main characters – many of them with the names and/or backgrounds as their “ancestors” in Cell Block H. But they tended to have arcs across three or four years; few lasted the full eight, mostly on the guard side. This timeframes was long enough to allow for fulfilling development, without getting stale. The first such was Bea Smith (Cormack), who arrives at Wentworth after attempting to murder her husband, following years of abuse. She becomes involved in the struggle for “Top Dog” status – the role of the most powerful prisoner – between two existing inmates, only to end up becoming Top Dog herself. However, it’s a lonely position, where you always have to watch your back, and allies can suddenly become enemies.

One such was the character mentioned above: Joan Ferguson (Rabe), known as ‘The Freak’ (left). She joined the show as the new governor of Wentworth in season 2, and was, to be blunt, a clinical psychopath, devoid of empathy and incredibly manipulative. She was also very smart, a lethal combination. However, it’s not enough to save her from ending up a prisoner in the jail herself. The first episode of season 5, where Ferguson is released into the general population was, for me, peak Wentworth, and one of the best 45 minutes of television I’ve seen, in any genre.

Remarkably, she didn’t just survive this reversal of fortune, but thrived. She took over as Top Dog. until an escape plan misfired, ending in her being buried alive by long-serving prison officer Will Jackson (Robbie Magasiva)). But you can’t keep a good villainess down, though it appeared the trauma led to amnesia, with Ferguson subsequently using a different name and with a completely different personality. Was this genuine, or another of her ruses? I couldn’t possibly reveal that. What I will do though, is laud a glorious performance by Rabe, who at six feet tall, has a remarkable physical presence, backed up by ferocious intensity. She’s Cersei Lannister on steroids. And without the incest.

In general, it’s perhaps less exploitative than you might expect, with nudity only when genuinely necessary to the plot, rather than for titillation purposes. On the other hand, the show does not soft-pedal the brutality of prison life, with violence and death a common occurrence. Inmates tend to handle their own infractions internally, the Top Dog having the ability to impose punishments for theft, deceit or, perhaps the worst offense of all, “lagging” i.e. talking to prison authorities. It would definitely be rated a hard R, purely for its authentically no-holds barred language. Boy, do the Aussies love themselves a good c-bomb – even more than us Scots!

There were, admittedly, times where the story-lines seemed to get away from the creators. A few threads did appear to be ended, rather than properly resolved. But considering the 70+ hours of television the show represented, such misfires proved remarkably few. The writers definitely had a talent for juggling multiple plot threads and keeping them all moving forward simultaneously. In the end though, it was the actresses (and actors) who made this show what it was, and which kept us coming back for the best part of a decade. If not our favourite show ever on Netflix, it’s definitely up there with the very best.

Creators: Lara Radulovich and David Hannam
Star: Danielle Cormack, Pamela Rabe, Kate Atkinson, Katrina Milosevic 

Battered

  By

★
“Of unsound mind.”

My first surprise here was that this clocks in at a crisp 44 minutes. That’s an awkward length for any film: too short to be a feature, but most festivals that accept short films will balk at a submission of that length, when the time could instead be used to accept three x 15-minute entries [as someone who runs a festival, this is definitely a consideration]. Quite how this got distribution, I’m therefore not sure; but there it was, sitting on Amazon Prime. However, less than two minutes into the viewing experience, I found myself thanking my stars the running time was so brief. Because this is hamstrung by the worst audio I’ve seen on any film in several years. When even an envelope being opened sounds like a burst of automatic gunfire, you’ve got a problem, and there’s hardly a scene here where this aspect is not bad enough, as to be an unbearable distraction.

It is something of a shame, since it has at least the germ of a decent idea. Piper (Paris) is in an abusive relationship, one that ends up with her being sent to hospital. On her release, she joins a support group for similarly battered women, who share video diaries, as part of the healing process. However, revenge eventually becomes part of their therapeutic activities, taking out their anger on the men who abused them, and these prove viral successes. There is potential for exploration here, not least in the way social media can create and inflame a lynch mob mentality – with the potential for it to spill over into the physical world too. Of course, for that exploration to work, you’d firstly have to be able to tolerate dialogue which sounds like it was recorded either in a wind-tunnel or a diving chamber. Not helping matters: characters that might harbour dreams of some day developing and blossoming into shallow stereotypes. And that’s just the women. Do not get me started on the men.

Then there’s a philosophical argument to be had here. We can all agree it’s wrong for men to beat up women. But this movie seems to make the claim – without much in the way of counterpoints being made – that it’s perfectly fine for women to beat up men. Because social justice. Or #MeToo. Or something, it’s unclear. This could be a viable approach, even without coherent and explicit debate, if the film engaged the lizard brain, and made the violence justifiable, even on a visceral level. Yet it fails to do that either. Instead we get a number of scenes which frankly border on the exploitative, offering a dubious counterpoint to the female empowerment narrative being pushed. Ugly camerawork and performances that, at best, do little more than propel forward the story, are other aspects which left me underwhelmed. It also ends in an abrupt and unsatisfying manner, as if Leslie eventually realized this was going nowhere. Shame it took him 44 minutes to reach that point.

Dir: Lewis Leslie
Star: Mia Paris, Paula Marcenaro Solinger, Carly Jones, Heath C. Heine

Witness Protection, by Holly Copella

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Literary rating: ★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

This is one of those books where the cover (right) feels at odds with the synopsis: “After witnessing an execution, a resourceful young woman attempts to disappear while being pursued by a hitman and a handsome federal agent.” Having read the book, the reality sits somewhat uncomfortably in the middle. It might have been better if the author had committed to writing either an action novel or a romance; the combination of them here is awkward and clunky. Naturally, my preference was for the former. But it seems that every time the book got into a rhythm there, the heroine would start lusting after one (frankly, close to all) of the male characters, and the energy would be derailed.

The central character is Jackie Remus, a helicopter pilot who is ferrying the Governor to an event when he invites her to his mansion. There, she stumbles into a murder committed by his right-hand man. Dexter Smyth, a situation from which she only narrowly escapes. As the sole witness, she’s placed into protective custody, under the guardianship of FBI agent Holden Falcone. But when the lakeside house in which she’s hidden, is stormed by the Governor’s men, Jackie decides she’s better off on her own. For she has a very particular set of skills, being a military brat whose late father was commander of a Navy SEAL platoon. So Jackie is quite capable of taking care of herself, much to Falcone’s consternation.

The bulk of the book therefore becomes a bit of a chase, with Jackie making her way across the country towards the mysterious Monroe, one of her father’s former soldiers, whom she believes offers her best shot at safety. Falcone is in pursuit of her, while Smyth is seeking to intercept Jackie, and make sure she is never able to testify against his boss. Mixed in with this, is a lot of unresolved sexual tension, especially between Jackie and the FBI agent. Though it ends being thoroughly and repeatedly resolved, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. This begs the question of what the FBI thinks about an agent having sexual relations with a star witness in a high-profile case. The book clearly doesn’t care.

There’s also a sense of too much stuff happening for no adequate reason, such as the bizarrely irrelevant home invasion during a hurricane, which occurs at Monroe’s house in the Florida Keys. If this was a film, I’d say it was added in order to get it up to feature length, but a novel surely has no need for such padding. And, of course, there’s the way both sides stoically decline opportunities to shoot each other in the head. There’s not much here that comes across as convincing, though Copella does a good job of keeping things moving forward. There’s never a dull moment here. Just too many implausible ones.

Author: Holly Copella
Publisher: Copella Books, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
1 of 9 in the Witness Protection series.

Claw

  By

★★★
“Jurassic dog park”

Yeah, the scale here is a bit smaller than the Spielberg classic, to put it mildly. As in… there’s precisely one (1) velociraptor. For reasons that are a bit unclear, this is roaming a deserted Wild West attraction on the road to Los Angeles. Heading to LA are wannabe stand-up comic Julia (Walker) and her flamingly gay best friend, Kyle (Rennie). An accident forces them off the road, and with – what a surprise! – no cell signal, they are forced to seek help at the previously mentioned attraction, where Ray (Mede) is the only inhabitant, and is acting a bit odd. Turns out, there’s good reason for this, with a large, carnivorous prehistoric reptile roaming the facility, the work of a mad scientist (Mertz). Will Julia ever make it to Tinseltown?

Clearly, you have to understand that this is a low-budget entity, and not expect the kind of spectacle provided by larger dinosaur movies. That said, if you stick with it – and the 30 minutes it takes for the lizard mayhem to kick in, seems a lot longer – this isn’t without charm. Once it gets going, there is a fairly non-stop degree of energy, and there’s an interesting role reversal to the typical dynamic of couples in these movies. Kyle is the one who spends much of the time cowering in a corner; it may be stereotypical in its portrayal of homosexuality, but not gratingly so, and it allows Julia to become a bit more pro-active than normal.

If she is not exactly Ellen Ripley, to be sure, we are starting from a considerably lower level to begin with, and that does make her a bit more relatable. Most of what she does, is stuff that you or I could do (okay… probably just you. Getting out of bed is a battle, personally!), rather than any kind of superhuman feat. Between the writing and the performances, the film does a good job of making the characters seem like real people, to a better degree than most cheap B-movies. There’s a lengthy coda, after the film basically ends not past the hour mark, with several unnecessary scenes apparently added to reach feature length. It is probably just worth staying around, purely to hear Julia perform her velociraptor-themed stand-up routine.

The dinosaur is mostly CGI, and is integrated adequately enough into proceedings, though its actual interaction with any physical people or things, is limited to put it mildly. On the other hand, it manages to avoid the frequent pitfall of movies shot at night, where most of the action here takes place. You can actually tell what’s happening, without straining your eyes to peer into an underlit darkness. This positive is less common than you might think. Again, I cannot stress enough that it offers small-scale carnage, at best. However, I was still entertained more than I expected, and was left willing to give this the benefit, of the more than considerable doubts I had going in.

Dir: Gerald Rascionato
Star: Chynna Walker, Richard Rennie, Mel Mede, Ken Mertz

Chained

  By

★★
“Puts the gang in chain gang.”

Jaz (Severino) gets arrested by the cops and hauled off to Rikers Island on… well, let’s say slightly bogus charges. Her long time pal, Trouble (Martinez) is on the outside and sets about raising bail for Jaz, by any means necessary. That involves putting together a crew of her own who will seize the opportunity to take over drug-running territory in part of their neighbourhood. Needless to say, this decision doesn’t come without perils of its own, both from the authorities and the others with eyes on the profits to be made. Jaz, meanwhile, is having to come to terms with prison life, and isn’t exactly making friends on the inside. Even when the money for her bond is raised, Jaz’s issues aren’t over. However, Trouble finds a solution, after discovering the cops who arrested her have a little side-hustle of their own.

Considering this was made for $15,000, it has its strengths, Most obviously, it feels authentic. The players here may not have much in the way of formal acting experience or training. But I sense they’re not particularly required to do more than be enhanced versions of themselves. The way they act, talk and behave seems legit. Admittedly, who am I to judge? I didn’t exactly grow up on the mean streets of New York. But I can still tell when there is Obvious Acting going on, and it’s a flaw you often see in this kind of low-budget enterprise. I didn’t have to endure that kind of fakery here, and on the whole, the individual scenes were generally fine.

What didn’t work, unfortunately, was the overall flow, with the various plot threads never coming together into a coherent and engaging narrative. I felt like it was taking place over the span of several decades, but there were points when this wasn’t clear. Any film which wraps up with a brief “Twenty years later” scene – in which nobody seems to have aged a day – is on shaky ground. There were also a lot of moments where the script outran the budget. The “police van” in the opening scene, clearly isn’t. Indeed, I genuinely LOL’d later, as the same interior shows up on a van, rented from U-Haul, used for a raid on another gang. If you can’t afford a police van, or at least a decent facsimile, don’t write a scene needing one. The police station and Rikers Island were also… less than convincing, shall we say.

It is likely a little over-stuffed too. For a movie running only 76 minutes, the story tries to cram a lot in, and some of the threads (such as a pregnancy) end up feeling like afterthoughts. More restraint in writer-director Cardona’s ambition would have been for the best. She’s clearly familiar with street life, its characters, and how they behave. When the story sticks to this, the movie is at its most effective, although there’s nothing particularly new or important being said. When it tries to be more expansive, though, the resources just aren’t there, and the shortcomings are painfully apparent.

Dir: Deborah Cardona
Star: Rosemary Severino, Sheerice Martinez, Tyhem Commodore, Lexie Jose

S.O.S. Survive or Sacrifice

  By

★★
“New uses for vodka, #37”

This is occasionally almost endearing in its stupidity. Almost. It’s the story of Kate (Kaspar), who is on holiday in Cyprus with her bratty younger sister, Liz (Finch). With Liz asleep, Kate slopes off to the local nightclub, is befriended by another guest, Myrianthy (Rosset), and the pair end up going up in a tethered balloon at dawn with a pair of local hunks. Except, there’s an issue with the “tethered” part. Specifically, the man responsible does not realize that, for it to work, both ends of the rope need to be tied to something.

Like I said: almost endearing.

Anyway, a close encounter with a wind-farm leads to one man being knocked from the balloon, and the other is injured and eventually falls out of it as well (adorable!), leaving Kate and Myrianthy stuck in the air. They are drifting steadily out to sea, with diminishing fuel supplies, and completely forgot to call for help while over land, or until they were out of signal range (how silly!). Meanwhile, Liz is being treated as an abandoned minor, but manages to convinces a consulate official, Sophia (Webb), that they should track down Kate. Which eventually involves them getting a rubber boat and heading out to see. Where they discover it has a leak (Tee-hee!). Which they plug with a cellphone.  Yes, the writers of this decided that was totally a thing.

Meanwhile, the women in the balloon are attempting to attract attention in various ways, most of which seem to involve them removing one or more articles of clothing for various reasons. Well, it certainly got my attention. They also use lipstick to fashion an SOS sign, and when they run out of makeup for that, switch to their own blood. [I will admit to thinking, “Pity it’s not that time of the month, they wouldn’t have needed to cut open a hand…”] But the film reaches its peak level of what Chris calls “I’m so sure…”, when they start a fire using a condom, a bottle of vodka and some Cypriot currency. I want to see Mythbusters taking this one on.

I will admit to being somewhat entertained, in a “Whatever next?” way. Though could have done without the subplot which has one of the lesser members of the Baldwin family, William, sneaking into Kate’s bedroom with a knife, because reasons. I trust he got a nice holiday out of it, at least. Some of the photography is quite well done, and there’s good reason the film open with an acknowledgement that the film “was made with the support of the financial incentives granted by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.” The tourist board of that Mediterranean island nods approvingly, at the number of shots of its scenic landscapes.

But eventually, the stupidity on view wears out its welcome, and is aggressively grating, rather than amusing. By the time the end credits rolled, I was hoping to see a shark’s fin cutting through the water towards the women. As in so much else, the film disappointed.

Dir: Roman Doronin
Star: Jeannine Kaspar, Marianna Rosset, Ksenia Pinch, Crystal Webb