Tag: 2008

The Ballerina

  By

★★
“Not particularly on point.”

Here’s a real obscurity. 18 years old, and yet still with a mere seven votes on the IMDb. There, I had to find it by going through the director’s name, as the title brought up nothing. To be fair, it’s not even the best-known film of the year, because some guy called David Lynch made a short called Ballerina in 2007. But it turns out to be an early work from Mauser, whose Lady Outlaw we covered earlier in January. That was certainly better – as it should be, coming almost two decades later, the director having made a good forty (!) features since. It doesn’t look like his budgets have increased much, but Outlaw does a better job of working within it.

Here, the ballerina is Tara, a ten-year-old girl who sees her parents ruthlessly gunned down because of their connection to the Capello crime family. She vows to find and kill whoever was responsible, and is brought up by her big brother Angelo (Jasso). He trains her in the ways of his own profession, as a hitman for the Capellos. Eight years later, Tara (Nutting) still has not been able to take her revenge, and is studying dance at college, while working alongside Angelo. She gets a visit from the mysterious Ruby (Young), a near-legendary figure in the underworld, who offers to tell Tara who killed her parents, if she helps fix things to his advantage. But she may not like what she is told. 

Mauser clearly subscribes to the notion that talk is cheap, for it is very chatty. Sometimes, this is ok: Young has a presence which commands the listener’s attention. But too often it comes off as a bad Tarantino wannabe – and even a good Tarantino wannabe would be on thin ice. Witness the lengthy early discussion about smoking, which had me wishing I had a knitting needle to jab into my ears. Fortunately, nothing thereafter is quite as terrible. However, it’s a film more interested in telling, rather than showing. There’s a corrupt female cop (Posas) in the mix, and I liked the way all the police station scenes were shot in shadow. Clearly to hide that they couldn’t afford a set, yet it works well enough. 

The action is no great shakes, with Nutting being slow and having a limited set of moves. Certainly, there’s little or no indication of the expected balletic grace. She seems about as much a dancer as I am: I won’t see fifty again, and my knees aren’t what they used to be. Jasso comes off like you ordered Joe Mantegna on Temu, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, It all builds to an ending which strongly suggests Mauser is a big fan of The Usual Suspects in addition to Tarantino. As a pastiche of better film-makers, it’s just about okay, though the ten-year-old version of the heroine may be the most disturbingly intense thing this has to offer. 

Dir: Brett William Mauser
Star: :Amanda Nutting, Matthew Jasso, DeMarcus Young, Valerie Posas

Bad Day

  By

★★★
“Not-so fair cops.”

Rebecca Ryan (Goose) is an undercover cop, who has been working for three years as “Margaret”, infiltrating the McCann family, a South London organized crime outfit, with Darius Cruise (Ofoegbu) as her handler. He’s just been given a new partner, Abby Barrett (Air), and isn’t happy about it. Rebecca, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Harry McCann (Calil), but his sister, Marla (Riana Husselmann), recently out of jail, suspects something is up with ‘Margaret’. When an incident appears to blow her cover, and Rebecca returns home to find her daughter murdered, she decides it’s time to make the entire McCann family pay for their actions. As the title suggests, everything subsequently unfolds over the course of a single day.

It’s all a bit wobbly at the beginning, with the director struggling to get all the various plot threads up and running. Trimming them back would have been helpful, such as Abby’s contentious relationship with her former partner; it adds little. Air’s performance isn’t the best either; she’s considerably less convincing as a cop than Goose or Ofoegbu, although the latter is clearly channelling the spirit of Idris Elba as Luther. As a low-rent version thereof, he’s not bad, with the script throwing on copious quantities of cynicism, such as Darius telling his partner, “The only thing I don’t believe in anymore is this job.” Goose is decent too, playing a woman who is teetering on the edge of losing herself, with her daughter providing the sole reliable anchor in her life.

When that tether gets removed, there’s really only one way things can go: downhill, quite rapidly. The problem is, the further in we get, the more likely it is that the McCann’s weren’t responsible (though I have to say, the actual resolution doesn’t feel credible, especially for a British-set movie). But by the point Rebecca discovers the truth, a quote from Lady Macbeth fits the anti-heroine very well: “I am in blood stepped in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er.” It does feel almost Shakespearean, in the sense that tragedy seems inevitable, and the characters are largely powerless to do anything about it.

I’d like to have seen more of Marla, who makes an immediate impression from her first scene. The character has a calculating edge, and a civilized veneer thinly covering a most unfeminine fondness for brutality. I almost wish the makers had gone the whole way, and made Darius a woman as well, to complete the quartet of strong female characters. The low budget does occasionally show through, and some of the action might leave a bit to be desired, though the inevitable brawl between Marla and Rebecca does achieve a satisfactory resolution. However, by concentrating on the women, it does stand out from the slew of “gritty” British crime film to come out in the two thousands. While it’s no Luther, I found myself adequately entertained and surprisingly engaged.

Dir: Ian David Diaz
Star: Claire Goose, Donna Air, Anthony Ofoegbu, George Calil

Barbie and the Three Musketeers

  By

★★★
“All for one, in a Barbie world.”

Yes, I went there again. After Barbie Spy Squad, I’ve gone back to the plastic fantastic, for another entry in the crossover action heroine animated industry. This isn’t the first review here to cover a female take on the classic novel. La Femme Musketeer had already gone there, but the major difference there was, as the title implies it only had one woman, who had to keep her sex under wraps. Here, while the setting remains pre-revolutionary France, the wannabe Musketeer is openly a lady. On the high level, it is a fairly loyal adaptation, with teenage heroine Barbie – here called Corinne (Sheridan) – heading to Paris to fulfill her long-held ambition of becoming a Musketeer.

There, she’s initially spurned – albeit more for her lack of relevant experience than her gender – and has to prove herself. Naturally, there are no women Musketeers with whom she can bond, but she literally bumps into other young women, such as Viveca (Tozer), Aramina (Johnson), and Renée (Bell), with whom she finds employment as a maid in the palace. Naturally, she encounters the similarly teenage Prince Louis, and discovers that the skills of her coworkers are not limited to light housework. Together, they have to protect Louis from various attempts on his life, such as a falling chandelier, carried out by those who have designs on the royal power, before Louis ascends to the throne on his imminent eighteenth birthday.

Y’know, I did not hate this nearly as much as I feared I might. Corinne is established early on as smart, athletic and competent, though I could probably have done without her talking animals. But in general, the voice acting is enthusiastic and effective, though the women do sound a bit as if they have interchangeable heads. Bonus points for the unmistakable tones of Tim Curry, playing malevolent regent Philippe, who is next in line after Louis. The animation is… okay, I guess, considering the era. Nobody is going to mistake this for Pixar, yet it does the trick, and on occasion is actually more detailed than I expected (just not on the character’s faces – though, again: plastic, duh).

Messaging is probably considerably lighter than in the live-action Barbie movie. There’s a few statements that “girls can’t be Musketeers” – I mean, this was 17th-century France, it’s not wrong – and the resulting need to prove them incorrect. That’s about it. Instead, there’s a training montage set to the riff from EMF’s Unbelievable, which I did not have on my Barbie Bingo Card. The action is better than I expected, too, though obviously no blood, despite all the pointy objects being energetically wielded, both by the heroines and their enemies. At the final ball, no weapons are allowed in, so they have to make do, with creative use of fans, ribbons, etc. [Weirdly I read one review which said they never get to use swords, which they clearly do.] There’s also refreshingly little romance here. All told, perfectly watchable, to my near-shock.

Dir: William Lau
Star (voice): Kelly Sheridan, Tim Curry, Kira Tozer, Willow Johnson, Dorla Bell

Veronica

  By

★★★
“Teaching moment”

Veronica (Beltrão) is a teacher in a Rio de Janeiro school. One day, nobody comes to pick up one of her pupils, Leandro (de Sá), so she accompanies him back to his house in the Rio slums known as favelas. Only, on arrival, she finds out his parents have been shot dead by gangsters. His father had been playing a dangerous game as an informant to the cops, and it had finally caught up with him. However, that morning, he had given his son a thumb drive containing a bombshell video, and his former employers are very keen to get it back. And, it turns out, so are the police, some of whom are in cahoots with the criminals. This leaves Veronica in a difficult position, with nobody she can be sure is trustworthy – including even her ex-husband, Paulo. a police officer himself.

In terms of action, the picture on the right is more the exception than the rule, if truth be told. Veronica spends more time avoiding those are seeking to harm her and/or Leandros; there’s considerably more running than shooting, shall we say. But she’s still an action heroine, brave enough to face enemies whom any normal person would think twice about going up against [or several more times, if they’ve seen the brutal reality of favela life and police corruption which is the awesome Elite Squad]. Even more impressive, it’s not for anyone related to her by blood, just a kid in her class. I dunno about your primary school teachers, I’m not sure many of mine would have put their lives on the line against a posse of well-armed gangsters for my sake. :)

Is it just me, or does this feel a bit like Gloria, with a woman having to protect a young boy from gangsters, over incriminating evidence? I did enjoy the setting though, with a side of Rio being a very long way from the more glossy aspects which the tourist board want you to see e.g. Mardi Gras and Christ the Redeemer. The city shown here seems considerably more alive, yet with that energy comes a perpetual undercurrent of menace, with violence present just below the surface. This begins with the opening scene, in which the gangsters hang out on a roof with an impressive (or disturbing, depending on your point of view!) amount of weaponry. It does a good job of establishing the threat here, and that then informs much of what follows.

The relationship between Veronica and Leandros is key to the movie, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. At times, it seems very genuine, yet at others, Leandros has the usual issue with child actors, where their performance is obvious, instead of feeling natural. I will confess the climax also felt a little disappointing, with the heroine having to rely on the actions of others. The previous 90 minutes had shown her as being self-reliant and full of initiative, and I’d rather have seen this continue through the end. So, some way short of perfect, yet there are positives as well, and this still felt like a worthwhile experience.

Dir: Maurício Farias
Star: Andrea Beltrão, Matheus de Sá, Marco Ricca, Giulio Lopes

Sister Wrath

  By

★★★½
“Nun-conformist”

I think it’s safe to say you’ll probably be able to decide within a few minutes, whether or not this is your cup of tea. The opening scene is set in a strip-club where the next act on the main stage is dressed as a nun. After a couple of minutes, she pulls out an unfeasibly large weapon from under her clerical garb, and guns down the mobsters present, in gory fashion. Thereafter, you can expect more of the same, along with extremely savage jabs at organized religion. Catholicism is the main target, but Judaism and Hinduism get their share of jabs: for example, Gandhi is a martial arts teacher. Or there’s a Yiddish hitman, Viper Goldstein (Lavallee), who practices the art of “Jew Jitsu”. If you just roll your eyes at that, this is likely not for you. However, if you roll your eyes and also laugh, then you, like me, may be the intended target audience.

The heroine is Kelly (Nicklin) an aspiring nun with a bad temper, who ends up enrolled, not entirely willingly, in the Order of the Black Habit – though surely Order of the Bad Habit would have been an even better name? Whatever… They are a group of fighting nuns, each named after one of the seven deadly sins. Unsurprisingly, Kelly becomes Sister Wrath, and joins her colleagues, such as Sister Pride (Cipolla), in taking down the criminal empire of Momma Rizzo (Tretheway, shamelessly channeling Shelley Winters in Bloody Mama). Momma isn’t going to sit back and let that happen, however. After her own goons prove not up to the task of taking on the Black Habit, she brings in Goldstein and his Ninja Throwing Stars of David, to escalate the war. With the help of a mole inside the church, he kidnaps Sister Pride, in order to lure Wrath and the rest of the nuns into a trap.

There’s a lot of glorious invention here, not least the remarkably catchy musical number in heaven, which rivals the one at the end of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. [In one of the film’s rare subtle moments, the same actor is here playing both Jesus Christ and the Devil] It’s gory and foul-mouthed, though for whatever reason, remains remarkably chaste: the stripper in the opening scene is wearing pasties. Likely only a lack of the necessary gratuitous nudity prevented this from getting a seal of approval, because the rest of it is right in my wheel-house of poor taste. Cameos from Debbie Rochon and Lloyd Kaufman – again, if you don’t know who they are… – only add to the sense of fun. The latter plays the Pope, who shows up late to absolve everyone of their sins. If not quite reaching the dizzy heights of post-grindhouse classics like Hobo With a Shotgun, it’s one of the rare cases where a B-movie genuinely lives up to the promise of its poster.

Dir: Richard Griffin
Star: Sarah Nicklin, Alexandra Cipolla, Rich Tretheway, David Lavallee Jr.
a.k.a. Nun of That

The Real Joan of Arc

  By

★★★
“Live to fight another day?”

Pun mot intended, but the reality is, we know very little for sure about Joan of Arc. Not even what she looked like in detail, for there are no surviving portraits of her, dating from when she was alive. The facts about her life are equally as uncertain, because everything about Joan was subject to spin, depending on who was talking, when they were saying it, and what agenda they sought to achieve. Because everybody involved had an agenda of one kind or another: either elevating Joan up to the level of literal sainthood (finally achieved in 1920, almost half a millennium after her death), or tearing her down, as a tool of the Devil. Even basic facts – was Joan a shepherd when she was young? – are uncertain, with contradictory testimony. 

It’s really in that light you need to view all this documentary shows. Indeed it largely opens by admitting to the above. This opens the door to questioning the standard narrative, in which Joan is a humble farm-girl, who heard divine voices and was inspired to lead France to fight back against the English invaders. However, I was also left with as much doubt about the alternative suggestions the film provides, because the evidence for them is little if any less sketchy. These theories are certainly interesting – and from a secular viewpoint, elements are perhaps no less plausible than the “voices of God” explanation. On other hand, it feels as if they raise as many questions as they answer. 

The first is the suggestion that Joan was actually of noble birth, perhaps an illegitimate child. This could explain things like her reported ability to ride and wield a lance, and speak “proper” French, rather than the coarse dialect of her village. She was, in effect, created for the specific purpose of becoming a figurehead. It’s an intriguing idea – though given events unfolded over a period of several years after she came to public attention, whoever was responsible clearly had to be playing a remarkably long game. It is, though, small beer beside the theory which occupies the second half: Joan was not burned at the stake, but survived, resurfacing a few years later as Jeanne des Armoises, getting married and living a whole second life.

Yeah, big if true. The evidence for this begins with alleged oddities around her death. Joan’s head being covered on her way to the stake; an unusually high pyre; hundreds of English soldiers keeping the locals at bay. Yet there were a lot of people who were present, and subsequently provided, albeit years later, sworn testimony as to her fate. It would have been a remarkable cover-up, to put it mildly. I’m more convinced by the second element: someone, representing herself as Joan, did resurface a few years later, even getting as far as the royal court and meeting Charles VII of France. However, most accounts agree that de Armoises ended up admitting to the fraud, being unable to tell the King information Joan would have known.

I still enjoyed watching this, and the intellectual exercise it provided. It’s always good to keep an open mind about history, and contemplate alternative scenarios, whether they pan out or not. Though some of the recreations leave a little to be desired, this is a decent, well-assembled piece, with good “talking heads”. It did give me pause for thought, and no documentary which does so can be considered a failure. 

Dir: Martin Meissonnier
Star: Marcel Gay, Francoise Michaud Frejaville, Colette Beaune, Philippe Contanime
a.k.a. Vraie Jeanne, fausse Jeanne 

While She Was Out

  By

★★★
“Christmas shopping can be hell”

Della (Basinger) is stuck in a marriage with her abusive husband (Sheffer). But she deals with it, for the sake of their two children, whom she adores. It’s Christmas Eve, and she escapes to the mall for a little retail therapy. The lot there is packed, and she leaves a passive-aggressive note on the windscreen of a particularly selfish parker. Big mistake. For it belongs to Chuckie (Haas) and his young group of multiracial thugs (one black, one Hispanic and one Asian, so that’s nice…). The subsequent altercation leads to the death of a mall cop, with Della as the only witness. So they pursue her, first to a construction site, then into the nearby woods, intent on making sure she can’t testify against them.

It’s kinda daft, and that’s putting it mildly. Takes a bit of time to get going too, with scenes of Della mall-ratting, and suffering microaggresions like a barista spelling her name wrong. Eventually, it gets to the violence, and things pick up, even if the silliness persists. Most obviously, Della lugging a big, red tool-box with her, shown in the poster, while she runs around the forest. It is, admittedly, a tool-box necessary to the plot, not least for its part in an energetic and impressive, “tyre-iron repeatedly to the face” sequence. This is just one of the ways in which Della dispatches the gang members, although the first is more the victim of an unfortunate accident than enemy action. 

The loopiness reaches its peak at the end, when the face-off between Della and the last gang member goes in a direction you probably would not have expected. Let’s leave it at that. But overall, this is an enjoyable enough slice of nonsense, with a story which is all the better for being extremely simple. Though it is easy enough to think of ways in which it could be improved though. For example, give Della some kind of back story to explain her ability to best young men in hand-to-hand combat. The story makes mention of her classes in Pilates, Spanish and mechanics; would it be so hard to have thrown in a karate class as well?

Probably the major potential area for improvement is on the villains’ side. Haas has a somewhat creepy vibe, however it’s one better suited to a lone psycho than a gang leader. Some of the dialogue between the members is also risible, as if writer/director Montford had no experience she could use to relate to her characters. They come off as largely unthreatening, more like kids playing dress-up than actual psychos, and the relative ease with which Della can counter them doesn’t help. But Basinger is good value in her role, and I will confess to nodding in appreciation at the final scene, even if it’s something we should probably have seen coming. I was entertained adequately by this, and that’s all I wanted.

Dir: Susan Montford
Star: Kim Basinger, Lukas Haas, Leonard Wu, Craig Sheffer

Trial By Fire

  By

★★
“Not so hot.”

When you hear this is a Lifetime TV movie about a female firefighter, that will probably set up all manner of expectations about what you’re going to get. I am here to tell you, this will deliver on every single one of them. While somewhat salvaged by decent production values – there were a few shots involving flames that genuinely looked impressive – you are not going to find a safer, more predictable ninety minutes of entertainment. It’s less a film than a parade of cliches, beginning with the heroine, rookie fire-fighter Kristin Scott (the appropriately-named Burns!) losing her father, the local station chief, in a blaze on his last day before retirement. Her sister Chelsea blames Kristin, as do her colleagues in the station, leading to her punching one of the latter out.

Seeking to obtain validation and self-respect, Kristin seeks to join the elite group known as “smoke jumpers”. They get dropped in to the most hazardous of situations, to try and stem the flames. To even get into the training, she’s going to have to overcome the prejudices of the existing jumpers, who harbour serious doubts about a woman’s ability to stand up to the physical rigours of the position. I’m not going to detail the plot any further, as you should be able to figure it out from there – right down to a finale where Kristin saves Chelsea and her husband when their camping trip suddenly becomes a bit toasty. Will there be flirty banter with fellow smoke jumper Ray (Ravanello)? Or another colleague who seeks to sabotage her chances? Maybe. Oh, who am I trying to kid. Of course there is.

Burns is tall enough to be plausible as a fire-fighter, but height and a “can-do” attitude only goes so far. She just doesn’t have the necessary physical presence. A key part of the smoke jumper testing, about which the film makes frequent mention, is the ability to do a mile in 11 minutes while carrying 100 pounds, and you just never get the sense our heroine would be capable of it. Still, this is part and parcel for the territory, and you can’t blame the film for skewing photogenic e.g. cutely smudged, rather than realistic. I do wish they’d done a great deal more with the script, however, which is just staggeringly bland, girl power wish-fulfillment.

It does appear the flames were probably largely added in post-production, yet these don’t have the obvious digital look you often see in such things. We get some impressively scorched earth scenes, which do actually give a sense of how dangerous this job is. It ends by telling us that 27 of the 400 smoke jumpers in the US are women, and that’s got to be a thankless and incredibly demanding task. I sense any one of their stories would probably be more interesting and less hackneyed than the one we get here. I also suspect any real smoke jumpers who watch this, would likely be rolling their eyes furiously.

Dir: John Terlesky
Star: Brooke Burns, Rick Ravanello, Winston Rekert, Wanda Cannon
a.k.a. Smoke Jumper

Kung Fu Femmes

  By

★★½
“What happens in Vegas…”

It’s weird what you stumble across on Amazon Prime. This is the feature-length version of a web series, originally made in 10 episodes. Just based on the title and description – “Delinquent girls are trained to perform risque but dangerous kung fu fight shows in a Las Vegas now owned and operated by the Chinese Mafia.” – I thought it best to wait until Chris was not around. Mostly because I’m not sure I could have stood the dripping sarcasm. Turns out, I needn’t have worried. Everyone remains attached to their clothes, and it’s resolutely PG-13 rated. Indeed, we actually see very little of the “risque” shows mentioned, which is a bit of a shame: the fragments we see, along with the training clips, suggest it’s something I’d love to attend in Vegas.

The story is mostly about Tyler (Tomlinson), who runs the troupe mentioned for casino magnate Michael Shang (Wong). He has taken over almost all the top locations there, for example, Caesar’s Palace is now Shang’s Palace. However, you don’t get to do that without some very shady business practice. Tyler is funneling information back to the FBI, in particular Agent Cook (Lorien), with the aim eventually being to take Shang down. It’s a perilous game for Tyler to be playing, and she also has to keep up appearances, finding and training girls for the show, which Shang wants to expand to a second venue. Not helping matters is the high mortality rate among the performers, apparently.due to in-show accidents.

The good news is, the actual fight scenes are pretty good. Not necessarily Tomlinson so much, but there are plenty of other actresses who know their way around a punch. Rising star Amy Johnston (Lady Bloodfight) shows up, briefly, as one of two girls who have a brawl… over a bag of chips! There are plenty of other good examples of fight choreography to be seen, sometimes for more justifiable reasons… The bad news? The video quality flat-out sucks. I’m hard pushed to believe this was shot in the late 2000’s, because it is horribly grainy and atrociously badly colour-balanced. Skin tones are particularly notable: there are times when people look badly sun-burned and suffering from jaundice at the same time. That’s quite some feat.

It’s so blatantly nauseating that it manages to distract badly from the other aspects, which are generally okay. [There are some gaffes, such as a scene supposedly taking place in Vegas, where a building in the background sports a 213 area code phone number. Uh, that’s Los Angeles…] The pacing is a bit off, as you’d partly expect from its origins as a web series. In particular, it feels like it ends, then suddenly we get a tacked on coda that bounces to San Diego, before returning to Vegas for a finale. Still, aside from the video, it wasn’t so bad. Creator Laudati has a bunch more short little films on Prime, and I might check a few out. Let’s just hope someone bought him a new camera…

Dir: Tony Laudati
Star: Michelle Tomlinson, Phoenix Wong. Serena Lorien, Anna Yosin

Exile

  By

★★
“Planet rock”

Space freighter pilot Jason (Sheridan) has his craft hijacked, and is forced to crash-land it on a deserted planet. Blinded and alone, things look grim for him, until he’s fortunate enough to be found by android Reyna (Guzzetta). She’s the product of a maverick genius, who took refuge on the planet, but recently died: she needs Jason, as the systems which power her require a human presence in order to operate. And he needs her – in particular, her advanced combat skills – in order to protect him, both from the planet’s hostile fauna, and the hijacker’s pals, who have followed him down to its surface. Yet, is Reyna entirely trustworthy?

This is especially shaky at the beginning. Maybe the CGI might have passed muster when this came out in 2008 (key word: “might”). The decade which has passed has not been kind to them, and you’d expect better from a remaindered PS4 game nowadays. Initially, the story is no great shakes either, especially with Jason’s blindness apparently little more than a slight inconvenience. He navigates his way round the unfamiliar landscape with the alacrity of a well-equipped bat, and seems to have little trouble breathing an atmosphere every other human requires a respirator to handle. Apparently, “you get used to it”, according to a throwaway line late in proceedings.

Then there’s the monster roaming the planet. It’s a good thing its only prey is blind, because… let’s just say, speed is not a strength. By “roaming”, I likely mean “shuffling slowly around.” On one level, it’s more than a bit crap, a bargain-basement knock of the Alien. On the other… it’s kinda endearing, simply by nature of being so inept: something Conway seems to realize, showing it only in quick cuts, close-ups and partial angles. We never get a decent medium-shot, probably for good reason. Throw in the proliferation of other people sharing the director’s surname in the credits, and it’s clear this is a professional production in little more than intent.

Yet, it has some interesting ideas, even if the interplanetary warfare described in the opening voice-over is notable by its almost complete absence. Guzzetta is actually decent in her role, with a physical presence which reminded me of Pollyanna McIntosh. It’s a role where her artificial, stilted and slightly forced performance (whether deliberate or not!) works for the character. The second half feels like a considerable improvement, when a rescue mission lands in search of Jason, and Reyna realizes her power source might be about to be taken away from her. If Conway had not over-reached himself and his available resources so aggressively in the first half, this could potentially (again, key word: “potentially”) have been a small cult classic.

Instead, while I’d like to applaud ambition in any film-maker, this feels like someone biting off an entire buffet more than they are capable of chewing. The results turn out to be similarly indigestible for the viewer.

Dir: Mike Conway
Star: Brian Sheridan, Heather Lei Guzzetta, Tiffany Sinclair, Jake Bass