Tag: i

Into the Inferno, by David Lucin

  By

Literary rating: ★★★½
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆

Regular readers will know I tend to review a lot of Book 1’s in series, but I don’t return for the sequels as often. This is an exception, and I was definitely left interested in reading the second volume by part one. If you remember, the first book took place here in Arizona, after an electromagnetic pulse sent an already wobbly and fairly dystopian America into full-blown collapse. College student Jenn Jansen needs to come to terms very quickly with a new world order (capital letters optional…) where violence is frequently the key to survival.

The second volume sees the process of change for the lead character continuing. The first volume saw Jenn engage in a fair amount of guilt and angst, after having to shoot someone in self-defense, a man known to her only as “Yankees Hat” [hey, some would call wearing a Yankees cap in Arizona sufficient grounds for homicide, in itself…]. However, as time passes, the memory of the incident and its impact on her psyche fade, as she adapts to what is now normal. She still isn’t exactly enthusiastic about it, but has a better appreciation of the necessity. This isn’t a character arc I often see: typically, action heroines tend to be fully formed, from page one. The steady development of Jenn, over multiple volumes, is an interesting variation.

Part two is largely concerned with an expedition down from Flagstaff to Phoenix. Jenn is convinced to go along, partly in the hope of discovering what happened to her parents, who were living in Phoenix when the EMP hit. It’s actually the second such reconnaissance mission, the first having failed to return. Naturally, the follow-up proceeds with great caution, and it’s not long before this proves justified, with an ambush set for them on a bridge. After dealing with that, they arrive on the northern outskirts of Phoenix and find a survivor from the first group in a refugee camp. He’s in desperate need of antibiotics, and getting them will require a raid on a hospital occupied by a well-armed group of thugs.

This helps up the ante on the action, as Jenn and her group have to make their way undetected to the hospital, then figure out a plan of attack, despite being outnumbered. Fortunately, they aren’t entirely outgunned, having been loaned a rather nifty self-propelled mech. However, that only mitigates the situation, rather than solving, and by the end, after a strong, well-written climax to the story, Jenn has found levels of courage which surprise even her. By the end, while she may be back in Flagstaff, it’s clear that it’s not necessarily a safe haven, and I have a strong feeling we’ll find that demonstrated in the books to come. I also suspect it might not be 18 months before the next entry in the series gets reviewed.

Author: David Lucin
Publisher: Highway 3 Publishing, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Book 2 of 6 in the Desolation series. The author sent me a copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review.

Intruder

  By

★½
“Deceptive Advertising department, please.”

“An underground fighter and her estranged father steal a spacecraft to escape a dying Earth, only to face a deadly stowaway who sabotages their life support, forcing them into a fight for survival in the claustrophobic confines of space.” That’s the film I wanted to watch. Unfortunately, it actually occupies only about ten minutes or so, of the hundred for which this runs. The rest is mostly painfully obvious, and not particularly innovative, helpful or even funny, attempts at social satire. It feels like writer-director (as well as cinematographer, editor and producer) Grillo saw Don’t Look Up, and thought, “That was okay, but it needed to be much less subtle, and made on a budget of around forty grand.” 

It takes place in a world where tech billionaire Elon Musk Jude Micah (Douglas) is predicting doom, with the moon about to crash into the Earth. For the low, low price of fifteen million dollars, you too can have your own escape shuttle – the Intruder of the title – and fly off to join the other emigrants in an outer-space sanctuary. After initial denials from the authorities, turns out Micah is completely correct. Eventually (and we’re talking forty minutes in), we get to the point where Bree Hewitt (Godfrey), the fighter mentioned in the synopsis, does indeed hijack an Intruder and head off-planet. After odd occurrences on-board, there is a brief period, as noted of maybe ten minutes, where she does indeed fight the stowaway (Scarola). Then, it’s back to the social satire. 

I suppose, had I gone in with accurate expectations, this might have merited a better rating. There are a couple of moments which actually did amuse me: there’s a faux version of Frank Sinatra, singing a song whose lyrics are basically a serial killer ballad. And the final scene, just before the moon does indeed crash into the Earth, where a TV presenter professes his love for an increasingly horrified colleague. Those were genuinely clever and well-executed. But after the opening cage fight, showing Bree in action – and getting tossed from a pro career because of her failure to stop at the bell – we have to wait almost an hour for her to swing another fist in anger. Which is the reason I was watching. 

The reality is, had I gone in with accurate expectations, I simply wouldn’t have gone in at all. I have no objection to films with messages, but this is a prime example of one where it feels the movie is a delivery mechanism for the message, rather then first and foremost being concerned with entertaining the viewers. As soon as I realized this, I tuned out, because – agreement or otherwise with the specific message aside – it’s simply not why I watch films in general, and action heroine movies in particular. If I want a clumsy and blatant lecture on social issues, I will… Oh, wait. I don’t. At all. 

Dir: Christian Jude Grillo
Star: Dana Godfrey, Iryna Scarola, D.C. Douglas, Andrew Hunsicker

Intuition

  By

★½
“Lost in translation.”

This is a prequel to Argentinian cop movie Perdida, and if I had checked its 2½-star rating before settling into this… I might not have bothered. This struggled badly to keep my interest, I suspect because there are two disparate plots going on, which never manage to mesh satisfactorily. We re-meet (pre-meet?) our heroine, Pipa (Lopilato) as a raw police recruit, who has just been teamed with Grizzled Veteran™ Francisco Juanéz (Furriel). Juanéz has a reputation, both for brilliance and breaking the rules. The latter comes out after his wife is killed in a robbery gone wrong. The person accidentally responsible is barely out of jail when he’s conveniently killed in a hit-and-run accident. Suspicion naturally falls in Juanéz. 

Her bosses want Pipa to keep an eye on her partner and report his behaviour back to them. Meanwhile, she is also investigating the death of an obnoxious young socialite, whom it seems everyone in her circle had a reason to kill. As the two investigations unfurl alongside each other, we discover that there may be more corruption than Pipa was initially informed. Even if Juanéz turns out to have been responsible for the vigilante killing, will justice be served by his partner turning him in? More importantly, and less certain, can the viewer be convinced to give more than the slightest damn about any of the resulting drama? I’m afraid, from my position, the answer to the latter is a resounding “Meh.”

The mere presence of two unconnected plot threads strongly suggests the makers didn’t believe either had enough meat on their bones to satisfy the audience. In a film running 114 minutes, that would appear to be a problem. I’d rather they had simply worked on one or the other, developing it to the point where it was strong enough to sustain the movie on its own merits. As is, each has elements that could be of interest, but it feels as if, whenever they are at risk of engaging me, we immediately jumped to the other thread, losing all momentum. If there had been something new in the characters, this would have helped too. But Juanéz, in particular, is less an anti-hero, than a collection of cop tropes on legs.

I mean, if you can avoid rolling your eyes when it’s revealed Juanéz has an untreated heart condition, you’re a more tolerant viewer than I. Considering this was the first original Netflix movie to come out of Argentina, the results are less than impressive. The titular ability is used whenever the script paints itself into a corner, Pipa and/or Francisco pulling a clue out of thin air, so they can move the investigation forward. I barely could be bothered to summon the energy for an eye-roll by the time the final credits rolled. While there is a third film in the series, Recurrence, a.k.a. Pipa, it will be at least another seven years before I can bothered to review it.

Dir: Alejandro Montiel
Star: Luisana Lopilato, Joaquín Furriel, Rafael Ferro, Delfina Chaves

Infiltrate

  By

★★★
“Canadian bakin’.”

Thanks to Chris for finding this one. Albeit through a clip on a Chinese site under the name “Rescue From the Abyss”. This led to a significant diversion into movies about submarines, before eventually finding the correct, entirely submarine-free movie. No question, this is the hardest hitting film I’ve seen so far in 2026, though once you get past the action, things get more wobbly. Lily Chen (Ladouceur-Nguyen) is an operative for a shadowy government law enforcement group. She just learned about a potential promotion, though husband Jonathan is less enthusiastic and storms out. Before further discussion can occur, she gets a phone-call. The voice (Goad) informs her Jonathan is his hostage, and Lily needs to do exactly what he says.

His subsequent orders involve working her way through the criminal organization belonging to Marcel LaFleur (Moussi). Matters are complicated, as the voice eventually reveals that not everyone in Lily’s organization is as honest as she is. Can she trust even her boss, Director Bass (Berry)? There’s also backstory about a traumatic event in our heroine’s past, though this is largely irrelevant and can safely be ignored. Indeed, I’d say that overall, the scripting is the weakest link. The eventual explanation, while I can’t discuss it in detail due to spoilers, left me with a lot of questions. The supporting cast are a mixed bag too. LaFleur’s mismatched hair and beard colours irritated the hell out of me for some reason, as did his unexplained facial scars. 

But when he’s not doing pretentious things like painting in blood or debating Shakespeare… It takes a while to get to the expected Lily vs. Marcel battle. However, it is worth the wait, and is thoroughly convincing, despite the significant size disparity. It’s long, gruelling and brutal. I did have to laugh at the obvious stunt table, which stands out in LaFleur’s apartment like a sore thumb. The best fight might actually be earlier, when Lily has to take on a particularly psychosexual pair of henchmen. Though the opening scene sets bar for savagery quite high as well. Mark’s background in stunts is apparent, though I think I preferred his earlier feature, Control. While its script was imperfect, the flaws were less apparent. 

This Canadian production must be out of Quebec, given the significant sprinkling of French here. But, in another in the series of micro-aggressions the film commits, the font used for the subtitles is hard to read. I don’t recall the last time a film got the core element – here, the action – so right, yet appeared entirely dedicated to screwing things up around the edges. I could go on. The whiny nature of Jonathan, who doesn’t appear to realize it is no longer the Victorian era. Occasional forays by the director into shaky-cam. Despite that, there were still enough positives to keep me interested, and I look forward to seeing what both Mark and Ladouceur-Nguyen are able to deliver down the road. 

Dir: James Mark
Star: Orphée Ladouceur-Nguyen, Alain Moussi, Lisa Berry, Jonathan Goad

Inheritance

  By

★★★
“The family that spies together, lies together.”

Or, um, something, I guess. Maya (Dynevor) is at her mother’s funeral, when she gets a surprise, in the appearance of her long estranged father, Sam (Ifans). He wants to reconnect with her, and to this end, offers her a job with his real-estate company in Cairo. Despite qualms, Maya accepts, but not long after her arrival, Sam is kidnapped. To obtain his release, the kidnappers order her to recover a package and deliver it to them. Things turn out to be more complex than that, naturally, and the resulting trail takes Maya first to India, then on to South Korea, with various parties keenly interested in the outcome. She discovers the murky truth about her father’s business activities too.

While that likely won’t surprise anyone who has seen this kind of film, it does a good job of capturing the escalating sense of paranoia felt by the heroine. What is going on? Is her father a good guy or not? Who can she trust? [For the last, it’s unsurprising, and not really a spoiler, if you go with “nobody at all” there] The whole film was shot on an iPhone which is kinda impressive, because it looks surprisingly decent. It does add a hand-held immediacy to proceedings, and this helps in some sequences, such as when she is being pursued through the streets of Mumbai. Or is it Delhi? I’ll admit, it hard to keep track sometimes.

On the other hand, I tend to feel this should only be one trick in the cinematic locker, and because it’s used for the entirety here, its impact does tend to diminish. Fortunately, it’s considerably more stable than I expected, so I presume this wasn’t just the director waving it around by hand. Dynevor has to carry the film with her performance, and I did like the character arc. Maya starts off as a fairly nondescript party girl, who basically flings herself into hedonistic excess after the death of her mother, for whom she had been sole carer of late. But by the end, she has become hard-bitten and cynical, deception now coming as easily as breathing to her.

In its hand-held energy and globe-trotting shenanigans, it feels like it might inhabit a small, extremely cheap corner of the Bourne universe. However, I would definitely not expect any significant action set-pieces commensurate with that. While Maya does qualify here – she’s absolutely left to sink or swim based on her own abilities to escape perilous situations – it’s her instinctual smarts which are key to survival. You may be able to see where this will end up. In particular, there was one line which was absolutely an “Ah-hah!” moment for me in this regard. I wouldn’t say that destroys the film, since this is one where the journey is more interesting than the destination. This iPhone technique isn’t somewhere I’d like to live, yet it was an interesting place to visit. 

Dir: Neil Burger
Star: Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Necar Zadegan, Kersti Bryan

Imani

  By

★★½
“The Long Goodnight Kiss”

I’m not sure whether this is too long or too short for its own good. Could be a little bit of both. As the tag-line for this review suggests, it bears more than a superficial resemblance to a certain other action heroine film. Faith Newford (Hall) is your everyday, upper middle-class woman: married to a loving husband, physician Bryce (Shipp), with a young daughter, and running a shoe store on the side. Let’s not trouble ourselves about the mysterious amnesia, which leaves a large chunk of her past a blank slate. The problem is, Faith – or Imani, as she was previously known when she was a special ops soldier, is not supposed to be alive at all.

A blow to the head suffered during an abduction attempt triggers the return of her old skills, albeit at the cost of sending her on the run. Turns out she was in possession of information which could prove seriously detrimental to the political ambitions of General Michelle Dupree (Mirto). It’s why Imani and the rest of her squad were supposed to have been eliminated. If dodging Dupree’s goons wasn’t enough, there is another shadowy yet powerful group, who have an interest in Imani from the other direction, intending to use what she knows against Dupree. It’s all rather too over-complex, and I suspect they’d have been better off either simplifying the plot, or making it a mini-series. Hence my opening sentence.

The makers do get some things right, not least there has clearly been a decent amount of resources put into this. It doesn’t look cheap, and they also largely avoid most cliches of black action cinema. Though, inevitably, you still get drug dealers, rap music and The Man – or, in this case, The Woman – they are more incidental, and not the focus. Hall is okay as the heroine. If no Geena Davis, she generally acquits herself adequately in most of the action scenes, at least when she’s not trying to go toe-to-toe with obviously far larger and stronger opponents. For example, Raymond ‘Supreme’ Avant Jr (Lofton), who looks like he could eat Imani for breakfast, and pick his teeth clean with her spine. Yeah, their fight was a tad cringe.

At least the cinematic amnesia wasn’t too grating. For the movie simply has someone sit the heroine down and explain the past, rather than relying on the contrivance of her remembering it when convenient. Sometimes, simple is better. However, the film isn’t good at managing all the threads in the plot carpet, and it proved too much for my poor little mind to handle. I think my brain threw up a blue screen of death somewhere in the middle, during one of the more expository sections, about who was doing what to whom and why: my interest and attention never fully recovered thereafter. I did find the ending satisfyingly bleak – there’s always someone more shadowy and powerful than you – but I’d not call this more than adequate.

Dir: Mike Ho
Star: Brittany S. Hall, Demetrius Shipp Jr., Kris D. Lofton, Elyse Mirto

Inspector Sabiha

  By

★★★
“In-flight entertainment.”

Under other circumstances, this six-episode TV series, would potentially be a marginal entry. But, just as I try to take the historical era into account, I think the location from which a film comes should also be a consideration. Some countries and cultures are simply more action heroine friendly than others. What would be groundbreaking in one region, might not even qualify from elsewhere. This is from Pakistan, and is almost the first such entry in our site’s history. [There’s just Hunterwali which… yeah!] I originally saw this in a condensed movie version, at an altitude of forty thousand feet and a ground speed of 555 mph. For I stumbled across it on the in-flight entertainment system while flying back from the UK to Arizona.

It adequately occupied a bit of time on what ended up being a fourteen-hour flight, thanks to an engine issue delaying the take-off. My grumpiness at this was, however, somewhat alleviated by unexpected GWG on the seat-back TV. By Western standards, it would definitely be considered mild, almost to the Lifetime TVM level (which makes sense, basically being a TV movie). But Pakistan isn’t exactly a beacon of empowerment. This female cop was “a giant step for womankind in the Pakistani drama arena”, according to local writers, so we need to cut it some slack. The heroine, Sabiha (the unfortunately named Butt), is the daughter of Inspector Saeed Shah, who was murdered in the line of duty while undercover. She wants to follow in his footsteps – her uncle Akbar (Ehteshamuddin) is also on the force.

He has a nasty revelation: her father, who was also his brother, had gone over to the side of the criminals. This was something covered up to avoid embarrassing the force to outsiders, though it’s an open secret within the police. Sabiha is devastated by this, adding on to problems with her self-confidence as she goes through the training, to the point she is unable to fire her gun, despite the encouragement of a friendly trainer. She eventually is able to cowboy up and persist. Passing the police exam gives her the access necessary to investigate her father’s case, find out the truth about his death, and dispense justice to those who were responsible.

To be honest, Butt doesn’t really look the part – too much make-up for a cop, by Western standards. Nor is she especially convincing in action, though it is cool when she whips off her burqa to reveal her police uniform underneath, and storms the villain’s headquarters. There are some decent emotional moments too. In this area, the heroine is outdone by her mother (Iffat Omar), who is impressively intense, such as when begging her husband not to go undercover. Writer-director Sarwar cuts up the time-line, so we bounce back and forth from Sabiha’s training to her childhood, but it always remains comprehensible. Despite not having seen Gunah, the series to which this is a prequel, it proved good enough to hold my attention. Though considering my location, guess I couldn’t exactly walk out…

I subsequently found all six TV episodes with English subs, and a playlist is embedded below. 

Dir: Adnan Sarwar
Star: Raba Butt, Enteshamuddin, Yasir Hussain, Yasir Nawaz

In the Lost Lands

  By

★★★
“Bit of a lost opportunity.”

Well, this crashed and burned at the box-office in no uncertain fashion, taking in less than ten percent of its $55 million budget. While not surprising – dark fantasy doesn’t exactly have a good track record of late – it is a bit of a shame. I loved the look of the film, which is often spectacular, reminding me of things like The Chronicles of Riddick in a willingness to step back and overwhelm the viewer with scale. I am, of course, contractually obliged to watch anything with Milla Jovovich in it, and she’s her usual good value here. Bautista had a solid track record too, and he’s certainly appropriate for the role. But then, there’s the plot…

This all takes place in a harsh post-apocalyptic world, ruled over by Overlord, with his rule maintained by the church and its inquisitors, who tolerate no heresy. That would be the witch Gray Alys (Jovovich), who can compel anyone meeting her gaze to do her bidding. She is tacitly contacted by Overlord’s wife (Okereke), who wants Alys to give her the power to change her form. Doing so means Alys must journey into the Lost Lands outside civilization to find such a shapeshifter, and she hires Boyce (Bautista) as a guide on that quest. However, they are also pursued by church enforcer Ash (Joven), who is keen to bring the blasphemous Alys to heel for her reluctance to toe the line.

The stuff in the Lost Lands is great, and is where the film genuinely lives up to the “epic fantasy” tag. Frankly, that budget seems quite cheap for what you get, with some stunning landscapes and great set-pieces, including one on a cable-car which is likely to be among the best action sequences I’ll cover on the site this year. The problems arise when the film drifts away from the most basic of plot: Alys and Boyce hunting a shapeshifter, while Ash hunts them. That would, of course, be far too simple for a film based on a story written by George R.R. Martin. As you’d expect, the creator of Game of Thrones has a lot of other palace-based shenanigans involving the Overlord and his queen.

These are muddled, confusing and, frankly, not very interesting. This kind of heavy plotting is certainly not in director Anderson’s wheel-house either. If you look at his filmography, his output tends to be at its best when its most streamlined. The same applies, in microcosm, to this film. Give us Milla and Dave slicin’ and dicin’ their way through Ash’s minions, and we will be happy. The further it drifts from this elegant simplicity, the less firm is the ground on which it operates. To the point that, too often, it ends up sinking under the weight of what the script thinks is gravitas, yet in reality is nothing more than stuff we have no reason to care about. 

Dir: Paul W. S. Anderson
Star: Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista, Arly Jover, Amara Okereke

Impulse

  By

★★½
“Two’s company…”

This is one of the more successful efforts to spin a conspiratorial narrative – at least until the final act, where it topples over into implausibility. It’s a bit like how QAnon were not wrong about the rich and powerful being involved in sex trafficking… it just wasn’t out of the basement of a pizza restaurant. The heroine here is Sofia (Gudic), a journalist who is investigating a series of odd murders, in which powerful men are killed in highly compromising positions. These are assassinations carried out by an escort-assassin, Theda – yeah, one of the less subtle anagrammatic names I’ve seen – on behalf of a shadowy, super-powerful group of the wealthy and famous, under the oversight of Zane (Cassavetes).

Complicating matters is that Theda (also Gudic) is the spitting image of Sofia, just with dark hair, so when a fellow journalist, David (Ferrigno), see the hitwoman leaving the scene of a killing, he becomes convinced Sofia is moonlighting. Of course, there are only a few possible ways this can be resolved, such as a coincidental doppelganger, long-lost twin sister, or severely split personalities. I won’t reveal which way the film goes. But there is a sharp ring of plausibility to the way the cabal obtain blackmail material in order to get a politician, Governor Hughes (Kirkland) on their side, then manipulate him to do their political bidding. Though perhaps most chilling is the way the group quickly moves on when Hughes is no longer of use.

As someone who used to be into conspiratorial stuff (back when it was still fun, which slowly ceased to be true after 9/11), I enjoyed these elements, and nods to things like mind-controlled assassins. But at the end, it shifts into some kind of occult ritual scenario involving baby sacrifice, which makes the whole thing smell weirdly like misinformation. The powerful will act to retain  or increase their power: there’s no need for any motivation beyond that, including spooky cosplay. Naturally, Sofia – or is it Theda? – is on hand to witness these rituals, and face off against the cabal members in their lair, including both Zane and the person responsible for her situation. Credit the makers for delivering a surprisingly downbeat ending.

Gudic seems to be having adequate fun in her dual roles, though I’d certainly like to have seen more of Theda in action. It feels like her murderous talents are wasted here, even if making someone choke to death on a large, realistic-looking dildo does demonstrate impressive imagination. The ease with which she apparently shrugs off her programming is a bit troubling: if I was an evil overlord, I’d be having words with my abuse-induced control department minions. More action, and to be frank, more gratuitous nudity, would have been welcome. What’s the point of having an escort-assassin who never undresses? [Though there is a scene involving two girls, a bath and a lot of red wine] Overall, I was adequately amused, albeit not much more.

Dir: Patrick Flaherty
Star: Dajana Gudic, Lou Ferrigno Jr., Nick Cassavetes, Rob Kirkland

In the Eyes of the Prey

  By

★★½
“The eyes have it.”

New rule. If ever I become an evil, kidnapping overlord, I shall be sure not to leave potentially lethal power-tools left lying easily accessible, around the place where the abductee is being kept. This is just one of the many mistakes made by the criminals here, in what could be an instructional guide on how NOT to execute a kidnapping. Admittedly, they weren’t aware that their victim suffers from multiple personality disorder. The alternate version is more than happy to wield the aforementioned power-tool – specifically, a nail gun – with extreme prejudice. It helps that these grown men and hardened criminals make it remarkably easy, for a 110-lb woman to overpower them in various ways.

Let’s rewind though, because it takes a while to get to the nail gun carnage, the reason why we’re here. Laura (Calamassi) is the victim, having been kidnapped by a gang led by Santiago (Massaria). These are the usual mix of tropes from this kind of movie. There’s the nice one, Benedetto (Badea); the pervy one, Lupo (Potenza); the fiery hot-head, and so on. Meanwhile, we get far too much back story about Laura’s mental health history. This includes an assault on an art teacher, sessions of therapy, and childhood trauma where she saw her mother gunned down in front of her. Exactly how this triggers the splitting off of PsychoLaura is unclear. I suspect the film is equally reliable in the fields of aberrant psychology, and as a “how to kidnap” manual.

If the script is flimsy and not very interesting, the film does rebound somewhat in the performances. Calamassi delivers good work when going Full Gollum, tussling with her internal demons, and if the supporting cast aren’t given much to work with, they do what they can. Things liven up when PsychoLaura takes full control, but here the limited budget (only fifteen thousand Euros) comes into play. That’s why we only get told one of her victims suffered 90-100 stab wounds and has a saw sticking out of his forehead. Or when someone else is decapitated with wire… it’s nowhere near as cool on screen as it sounds. Pro tip: if you can’t afford to show it, don’t include it in your script. 

Conversely, the sole female member of the gang is included to no real purpose. She’s initially set up as another victim, yet once the truth is revealed, nothing much happens. The scenery is very nice. Wherever it was filmed, seems like a lovely place to visit – whether or not you happen to be hiding out with a mentally deranged teenage girl you have kidnapped. So when the story doesn’t manage to retain your interest, you can admire the setting. Well, during the second half, when both the film and Laura escape the confines of the house. Everything ends in an uncertain manner. I’d probably have been disappointed in it, if I had felt any more than marginally invested in the final outcome. 

Dir: Leonardo Barone
Star: Laura Calamassi, Gabriel Dorigo Badea, Paolo Massaria, Jerry Potenza
This review originally appeared on Film Blitz.