Tag: revenge

Scavenger

  By

★½
“Not even worth it as scrap.”

This should be right up my alley. For it’s a grungy, post-apocalyptic story of revenge, which is heavy both on the carnage and the nudity. Throw in disapproving reviews containing lines like, “Downright nasty movie that takes all the worst bits of exploitation cinema and proudly puts it on display,” or “Scavenger is truly appalling,” and you’ll understand why it was fast-tracked for viewing. However, the weird thing is… those reviews aren’t wrong – it is a bad movie, just not for the reasons they espouse. The bigger problem is simply poor execution, in a way that manages to take the sex ‘n’ violence, and make it all painfully dull. Of all the cinematic sins, that’s one I find hard to forgive.

It takes place some years after a non-specific apocalypse, which has left cannibalism as the sole source of meat. Muscle cars, lingerie and cassette tapes are, apparently, still plentiful. Roaming this wilderness is Tisha (Churruarin), part bounty-hunter, part nomadic butcher. She accepts a commission from an old woman, to hunt down the scumbags who made her a whore and ruined her life – the usual. Tisha accepts, even waiving her normal fee. However, on arrival at the house of ill repute run by Luna (Lanaro), she quickly finds herself on the staff. She’s going to need to find a way out before she can complete her mission. It’s also going to get considerably more personal before all is said and done. 

I suspect the above sounds more fun than it really is. Part of this may be the dubbing, which appears to be both written and performed by people for whom English is a very distant second language at best. However, the main issue is simply far too many periods when zero of interest happens. Basically, after Tisha arrives at Luna’s, absolutely nothing of importance happens for a good half hour. Unless you consider the heroine being subjected to various indignities, up to and including being peed on, as “important”. In a film which runs only 71 minutes including credits, it’s a criminal waste of time, and the film has little or no chance to recover thereafter.

Its death nerve twitches feebly down the stretch, with some enthusiastic gore, Tisha wielding a bizarre weapon like a giant mixer to disembowel people. Yet it could do no more than provoke a slightly raised eyebrow. There are a couple of elements I did like: the heroine is not your typical post-apocalyptic babe; Churruarin has a rough edge to her presence that works in this setting. Generally, the set design is good too, selling the scenario effectively. These both need to be in the service of a considerably better script – one apparently less dedicated to enacting the bizarre sexual domination fetishes of the film-makers, which I do not share. ‘Truly appalling”? I probably wouldn’t give it that much credit, to be frank. 

Dir: Eric Fleitas, Luciana Garraza
Star: Nayla Churruarin, Eric Fleitas, Sofia Lanaro, Jose Manuel Solis Vargas
a.k.a. Carroña

Ditched

  By

★★
“No-one is innocent”

Paramedic Melina (Sila) regains consciousness to find herself in the back of her ambulance, along with her patient, Franson (Loranger), and the rest of the crew in various states of health. The vehicle had gone off the road and fallen into a ravine, along with the accompanying police car. It turns out they were transporting Franson and another prisoner to hospital when the crash took place – and it quickly becomes apparent that what happened was far from an accident. A posse of camo-clad hunters close in on them, led by Caine (Gray). Their mission to make all the vehicle’s occupants, both criminal and otherwise, pay for the sins of their pasts. They’ve brought with them the wronged parties in question, to exact bloody revenge.

An interesting idea, undone by a script which never manages to address basic questions, and which relies too much on ridiculous coincidence, necessary so that the film can happen. I mean, what are the odds of every person taking part in the convoy having a lethal secret hidden in their past, for which they escaped justice? I also am impressed with the organizational skills shown by the ghillie-suit wearing vigilantes. We can’t even get half our family to commit to a birthday party venue, never mind everyone trekking out to the middle of nowhere to take vengeance. Then there’s Melina’s concussion, which appears to have no impact at all five minutes later. On the other hand, she miraculously goes from needing to have explained to her, that a gun will stop someone “doing bad things,” to being a thoroughly competent operator of firearms.

The enemy outside are, initially somewhat menacing, at least when they are in stealth mode. Probably inevitably, given the nature of the plot, they eventually switch into unnecessarily verbose, with Caine the biggest culprit in the category of verbal oversharing. [I’m still trying to work out what the “quick and painful” death he orders at one point would be like: surely it’s one or the other?] I did enjoy some messy and vindictive violence, executed in gratifyingly practical ways. For example meted out by a chainsaw, or a shotgun, first to the groin, then to the face. The ending is admirably bleak, if not unexpected – and, again, relies on remarkable happenstance.

Sila does show some promise, and I liked how nothing much is particularly made about her character’s native American heritage. Such normality is exactly how it should be. Melina has a personable nature, and operates in a common-sense way, refusing to panic despite the increasingly bizarre and threatening situation in which she finds herself. There’s hints that unleashing Franson might be the only way to counter their attackers; this might have merited further discussion, though from this site’s point of view, we are happier to let Melina be her own saviour. We would also have been happier to have seen her part of a totally different script:  oh, well, maybe next time.

Dir: Christopher Donaldson
Star: Marika Sila, Kris Loranger, Mackenzie Gray, Lee Lopez

Agent Girls

  By

★
“Badly broken China”

I have seen bad movies before. I have seen Chinese movies before. But I have never before seen such a bad Chinese movie. Really, their action films are usually at least somewhat competent: even the dreadful work of the notorious Godfrey Ho usually had something of… well, interest, if not perhaps quality to offer. This, however? Utterly appalling, with close to no redeeming features. One anecdote should give you some idea of what I mean. When our daughter was 12, she and her little friend borrowed the camcorder and made a 10-minute action movie, mostly taking place in the garage. I am 100% serious when I say it had significantly better fight choreography than this, and the other elements which go into the film are of little if any higher standard.

The heroines are a group who have apparently just graduated from college. Though before we get to that, there’s a prologue involving a (stock footage) war between China and Vietnam, which somehow led to the establishment of “an International Evil Eye Organization”. One of the members was Xiao Lishan, who went off and did AIDS research. Pause for the first of many poorly-conceived scenes, of the girls wondering what to do with their lives, which is neither interesting nor informative. This is mercifully interrupted by Xiao Fei (Ling) getting a phone-call from Mom, telling Fei her father has committed suicide. It won’t be long before viewers will be considering similar action, as a means of escape from this viewing experience.

Fei can’t believe he’d take his own life, and the suspicious actions of a delivery driver increase her doubts. So after the police close the case, she and her group of gal pals begin their own investigation, seeking the culprits and to make them pay. This will eventually take them back to Hanoi – I’m assuming that’s the “H city” referred to. Though the budget extends to nothing more jet-setting than a random shot of a plane taking off, without even any of the usual “exterior shots” used in low-budget cinema to establish an exotic location. This is just one of the many technical flaws, also apparent in quite terrible audio work, ranging from the tinny and echoey, to the basically inaudible. Even though this was subtitled, it remained an annoyance.

But this is positively Oscar-calibre compared to the action. It builds to an assault in search of a USB drive, where they are supposedly going up against “commandos”. All I can say is, the Chinese Army is vastly over-rated, though I was amused by the way they wear ski-masks for no apparent reasons. It is painfully clear nobody here has had any kind of martial arts training at all, or is remotely familiar with the business end of a firearm. Combine this with the woeful ineptness present in almost every other level, from the writing through the performances to the direction, and you’ve got something that is a couple of credible drone shots away from being a contender for the worst action heroine film of all time.

Dir: Xiao Ju-Shi
Star: Ling Yu, Zhang Mu-Qing, Pang Cheng-Yu, Maidina Paluk

An Eye for an Eye (2000)

  By

★★
“Somewhat eye-dentical.”

This opens with a scene that is almost a direct life from the similarly titled Eye for An Eye, directed by John Schlesinger four years previously. Here, businesswoman Carmen Pak (Cheong) is on a video-call – or, at least, the primitive 2000 version thereof – with her daughter, Shan (Tong), when someone breaks in and attacks Shan. Carmen can do little except watch in horror as her daughter is brutalized and raped. Though Shan identifies her rapist as Kiu Chi Yeung (Tong), there’s enough doubt over her statement, specifically regarding a tattoo he does not posses, that the police are unable to do anything. After further tragedy, Carmen decides to seek the justice she has been denied, through her own hands.

To this movie’s mild credit, it does divert from its American predecessor after the opening sequence, though this never manages to find its own identity entirely. It’s based on a rather shaky premise: namely that someone accused of rape would then, almost without hesitation, embark on a relationship with his accuser’s mother. It’s not even as if Yeung doesn’t know who Carmen is, which could have given the concept a sheen of plausibility. She’s right there when Shan physically attacks him after they both leave the police station. The script tries to walk a line of uncertainty as to whether or not Shan is guilty, though not particularly successfully. If you can’t figure out who was the perpetrator before the final confrontation, you haven’t been paying enough attention.

I did like the supporting character of Officer Chan (Ko), who initially comes off as a bit of a callous jerk, caring more about his mahjong losses than the rape case he’s investigating. However, he becomes more sympathetic as things unfold, being more a harried and overworked cop, who still tries to warn Carmen into taking care of things herself. It’s likely a better arc than the heroine gets, her development being largely summarized in a training montage where she hides a knife in the sofa, and uses it to attack innocent watermelons. It’s a curiously specific bit of practice, one made all the more odd by having little or no relevance down the road. She’s no more than semi-competent in terms of self-defense.

The same grade likely applies to the film-making on view as a whole. I can’t point to any elements that are especially deficient. Yet even less can I point to any elements which demonstrate innovation or even artistry. Everything plods along in workmanlike fashion, towards an ending that offers no particular surprises or thrills. Considering the subject matter, it’s surprisingly tame as exploitation, and would barely seem out of place as a Lifetime original movie. I was left yearning for the lurid excess of someone like Wong Jing to inject some pep into proceedings. We are, after all, talking about an anti-rapist vigilante here. This feels more like Carmen is fighting white-collar crime of some kind.

Dir: Yuen Shu-Wai
Star: Angie Cheong,  Michael Tong, Blacky Ko, Leila Tong

The Undaunted Wudang

  By

★★★
“Ground and pound.”

Chinese kung-fu movies took off in the early eighties, after the success of Shaolin Temple, starring an unknown teenager called Jet Li. Over the years that followed, a slew of imitators followed, with varying success. Where these largely differed from their Hong Kong counterparts, were in a more grounded approach to combat: wire-work and trampolines were avoided, in favour of players who (like Li) were martial artists first, and actors second. I believe the same is true of the heroine here, though information about Lin is hard to come by. According to the IMDb, this was her acting debut, though it’s tricky to grade her work there, thanks to the rather clunky dubbing on the print viewed for this review.

It takes place in the late 19th century, when countries like Japan were sending martial artists over to China, to fight the local masters. Chen Xue Jiao (Lin) is part of one such family, whose father dies in mysterious circumstances, and her brother is then killed by the Japanese [it’s not clear from the context if he’s her sibling, or just a colleague in their school]. She’s also on the Japanese hit-list, but escapes with the help of conveniently passing kung-fu expert,  Si Ma Jian (Zhao). Discovering the truth about her father’s death – which I won’t spoil, but really, your first guess is gonna be correct – she finds sanctuary at the Nashan Temple in the Wudang Mountains. There, the head priest (Ma) teaches her the necessary skills to take on her treacherous classmates and the Japanese.

This just about counterbalances an extremely prosaic and cliched plot with the undeniable competence of the martial artists on view. Sun has absolutely no sense of style as a director, yet that’s really the best approach for the film. You just want someone to point the camera in the direction of the performers, so as to appreciate the grace and strength on view, of Lin in particular. The problem here is, apart from that, and some quite pretty Chinese landscapes (especially around the temple), there’s not enough to sustain interest. The pacing is questionable, with Chen not even finding out a pivotal fact about her father’s death until the half-way point. While even the training sequences have some appeal, her actual revenge occupies only the last fifteen minutes or so.

I’m in the middle between the two camps of thought in regard to martial arts films, with no particular preference for either the high-flying and spectacular, or the grounded and more realistic style. For me, it’s all about the execution, and whether it’s done well. Here, it feels as if all the effort went into the action. While the most important part of proceedings, it’s not the sole element that matters. To make a great martial-arts movie, you still need characters and a plot. Otherwise, you’ve got the equivalent of a meal where the main course may be delicious, but the dessert sucks, the service is brusque, and the cloakroom loses your coat. That’s about what you have here.

Dir: Sha Sun
Star: Quan Lin, Changjun Zhao, Yuwen Li, Zhenbang Ma
a.k.a. Wudang

Asking for It (2020)

  By

★★
“A Net loss.”

Not to be confused with the 2021 rape-revenge film of the same name (which I’ll get round to reviewing down the pipe), this is somewhat lighter in tone, though there’s a case to be made that this clashes terribly with the subject matter. Jenny (Hsu) is a journalist, working under Cheryl (Garofalo),and her work has brought her to the attention of an online stalker, who sends her increasingly disturbed and disturbing emails. When the harassment begins to move from the cyberworld into the real one, and the authorities fail even to reach the level of disinterest, Jenny teams up with room-mate Lisa (Morales), to hunt down the perpetrator and bring him to justice themselves.

In case the above is not clear, this is a comedy.

Yeah, I’m a bit uncomfortable about this. Not necessarily about the subject matter, as I tend to think any topic can be seen through the lens of humour. However, the more problematic your target, the less room for error. If you want to joke about, say, the Holocaust, you’d better bring your A game. This isn’t anywhere in the same league as a subject; however, nor is the comedy here anything close to an A game. There are a few amusing moments involving veteran Garofalo, who has the timing to hit home, with her depiction of a jaded and cynical writer. Yet otherwise, it’s mostly a weirdly toothless kind of satire, possessing too many “Is that supposed to be a joke?” moments, e.g. the blanking out of all the F-bombs.

I did enjoy the performances, with Hsu an appealing lead, and Morales doing some heavy lifting as the weirdo housemate from hell, whose special skills are indispensable to the plot. Though her “hacking” scene is another of those “Is that supposed to be a joke?” moments. The best scene probably has the pair heading to utterly deadpan teenage gun dealer, Lisa’s step-daughter, Missy. She delights in speeches like, “You left your G-string, by the way… I wore it. And then I sold it. On a website for perverts. And then I donated that money. To an elephant. Charity,” or “I don’t know how any of them work… I’m not a school shooter. Jeez, I’m sorry I can’t tell you the science behind riflery.”

Outside of those five minutes, the rest does not consistently work, either as a comedy or a thriller. I think it’s mostly a scripting problem, not least because the identity of her stalker is painfully obvious from the moment he first appears. You have to wait about an hour for Jenny and Lisa to catch up, and the pickings in that time – save Missy, who deserves her own movie – are slim. I was left mostly wondering why anyone would want to a) live in New York, and b) work as an online writer – fortunately, this is not my day job. I suspect this was not exactly the intended take-away. 

Dir: Amanda Lundquist, Becky Scott
Star: Stephanie Hsu, Irene Morales, Colin Burgess, Janeane Garofalo

Chess Game

  By

★★★½
“Queen takes king.”

I had to work quite hard to see this: while it is on Tubi, the subtitles there were only in Spanish, and so not much help (I’m still at the “Donde esta la biblioteca?” level). Fortunately, it then turned up on Vudu, and I bravely made my way through their crappy interface and frequent adverts to bring you this review. It was worth it. This is a solid slice of women-in-prison action/drama from Brazil, though perhaps less exploitative than I expected (especially given the country’s history in the sub-genre!) . I mean, Marins is a former model in Brazillian Playboy, so you’ll understand I had… certain expectations. Fortunately, the rest of the movie proved more than adequate to hold my attention. 

After a welfare fraud is discovered, Guilhermina Dos Santos (Fantin) takes the fall and gets a 16-year prison sentence, while the real mastermind, Senator Franco (Calloni) escapes consequences. Three years into her sentence, Mina has become top dog in the facility. After her parole request is turned down, the Senator decides it’s best if she ceases to be a problem. He pays the warden (Andrada), who bribes an inmate to shank Mina. The attempt fails, thanks partly to the intervention of new inmate, Beth (Marins), and Mina decides she needs to escape. With the help of a friendly guard, this is accomplished, with Mina, Beth and Mina’s lieutenant Martona now on the outside, where her sister, Juliet, offers her assistance. Mina kidnaps the Senator’s son, to force him to pay her share of the fraud profits. Yet not everything is quite as it seems, as things escalate towards a confrontation in a hospital.

Fantin, in particular, makes for an excellent heroine, especially when establishing her bad-ass credentials. There were points where this felt like an entry in the Female Prisoner Scorpion series from Japan – albeit less in terms of style, than Fantin’s attitude mirroring that of Meiko Kaji, and in its fairly cynical view of society in general. The plot is nicely handled as well, with the title proving quite appropriate, as Mina and Franco seek to gain the upper hand on each other. [I’ve also read that “chess” is a slang term for prison in Brazil, adding another layer of meaning] These twists continue until the film’s final shot, literally. However, the film does suffer from some pacing problems, e.g. a lengthy sequence where the escaped women shoot pool, drink and harass a man, brings things to a halt, just when it should be accelerating. I also have some questions, such as in regard to security in Brazillian jails, where it seems remarkably easy for multiple prisoners to waltz on out of there, with the help of just one guard. It’s not the only example of slipshod plotting, and it’s likely these flaws which stopped it from achieving a seal of approval, as it still does a lot in its eighty minutes. 

Dir:  Luis Antonio Pereira
Star: Priscila Fantin, Carla Marins, Antonio Calloni, Tuca Andrada 
a.k.a. Jogo de Xadrez

Mad Heidi

  By

★★★
“Pure cheese.”

I’d been aware of this movie for some time, through its innovative crowd-funding approach, which raised $3 million to cover the cost of production. After COVID hit, there were doubts it’d ever see the light of day, but here it is: the first “Swissploitation” film [If not quite the case, it’s certainly the first one with a seven-figure budget, as well as the first Swiss movie covered on this site] And it’s not bad: if you’re familiar with similarly crowd-funded spoof, Iron Sky, this is along similar lines of broad parody. It covers almost every genre of cult from kung-fu films through Starship Troopers to women-in-prison films, e.g. there’s an Asian prisoner sporting inmate number #701. It doesn’t all hit, yet safe to say, the more you’re a fan of B movies, the more you’ll get out of it.

The film takes place in s dystopian version of Switzerland, where the authoritarian government are the only ones allowed to produce cheese, under “very Swiss leader” President Meili (Van Dien, making the Troopers spoof propaganda film which opens proceedings, all the more amusing). They crack down harshly on black-market cheese dealers, and this includes shooting dead the boyfriend of Heidi (Lucy) in spectacularly gory fashion, blowing up her grandfather (Schofield) and imprisoning Heidi, under the tender care of warden Fraulein Rottweiler. The heroine eventually escapes, learns martial arts from two nuns and Helvetia, which I am guessing is the spirit of Switzerland. She then takes revenge, Gladiator style, on Meili’s second-in-command, Kommandant Knorr (Rüdlinger), and finally the big cheese himself.

There is a standard by which all nostalgic attempts at recreating grindhouse cinema are measured, and that is the near-perfection of Hobo With a Shotgun. I think the main area in which this falls short is the lead actress. While it’s almost unfair to compare anyone to Rutger Hauer, Lucy simply doesn’t make the same impression as the likes of the original #701, Meiko Kaji, Tura Satana, or even Dyanne Thorne. Although I cannot fault her effort, I was never fully convinced Heidi was the bad-ass necessary to the plot. However, the supporting cast are solid, led by Van Dien hamming it up to thoroughly entertaining effect.

It looks slick, with every cent squeezed out of the budget, and some startling bits of violence. Could have used more nudity, I’d say: the main source is Swiss performance artist Milo Moiré, who has quite the resume. I think I was hoping for it to be more outrageous. Operating entirely outside the confines of the studio system, it feels rather too safe. Yet I will admit to genuinely laughing out loud on occasion, and some of the sequences are fabulously deranged. For example, a prisoner is tortured with cheeseboarding – it’s like waterboarding, except with melted cheese – then finished off by being impaled through the head with a Toblerone, sorry, for trademark purposes, a generic, triangular bar of Swiss chocolate. Whether that concept has you appalled or intrigued, is likely a good guide as to whether or not you should watch this.

Dir: Johannes Hartmann, Sandro Klopfstein
Star: Alice Lucy, Max Rüdlinger, Casper Van Dien, David Schofield

Terror on the Prairie

  By

★★★
“Prairie dog pest control.”

I keep hoping Carano will deliver an action film reaching the quality of her debut, Haywire. Results since then have been… well, let’s be charitable and call them uneven. The reasons for her departure from “traditional” Hollywood aren’t something I want to get into: but this, produced by conservative outlet The Daily Wire, does show the book isn’t closed on her yet. The Wire have put out a few films we’ve covered here, though again, the quality has been mixed: the last, Shut In, was not good. This is a similarly simple story, yet does a bit more with it. The pacing is too languid for my tastes, yet there were sufficient quirks to keep me adequately interested.

It takes place on the Montana plains, some years after the end of the Civil War, where Hattie McAllister (Carano) and her husband, Jeb (Cerrone), are trying to make a life for themselves and their two kids. Hattie has just about had enough, and wants to head back to her home-town of St. Louis. Before any decision can be made, life is interrupted by the arrival of a former Confederate officer, the Captain (Searcy), and his band of men. While he initially seems charming, the scalps tied to his saddle tell another story, and it’s quickly clear he has a specific agenda, rather than randomly passing through. With Jeb away in town, it’s up to Hattie to fend off the ensuing siege until her husband can return. Considering she is depicted as unable to kill a rattlesnake that entered their cabin, she’s going to need new-found resilience.

It’s a straightforward tale, brought down by too many unnecessary pauses: we really do not care what Jen is getting up to, for example. These derail the film’s reasonable efforts to build tension, bolstered by some surprisingly graphic gore (one throat-slitting in particular), and Searcy’s good performance as a thoroughly villainous antagonist, whose word can’t be trusted, despite his quoting of scripture. It might have made more sense to have Hattie depicted as competent and brave from the get-go. Instead, it leaves the Captain and his men seeming incompetent, although some of this is their initial reluctance to take her seriously, e.g. he addresses her 9-year-old son as the “man of the house.” 

A novel wrinkle is the director’s decision not to accompany the action with a musical score of any kind. It certainly keeps you in the moment, yet there is also reason why Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack is so key to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Westerns being undisputed classics. The action, if generally restrained, is competent, and it’s probably for the best the film did not try to turn Hattie into some kind of Western MMA goddess. I did worry the return of Jeb was going to push his spouse off to the sidelines in the final reel; while it teetered on the edge for a while, the film pulled back. If not breaking any boundaries, this is worth a look, especially if you’re a fan of the genre.

Dir: Michael Polish
Star: Gina Carano, Nick Searcy, Donald Cerrone. Tyler Fischer

The Flood

  By

★★★
“Destroy me? They made me…”

The first eighty or so minutes of this are really good: powerful, committed and extremely angry film-making. And justifiably so, I would say. Unfortunately, the film runs for a hundred and seventeen minutes, and definitely goes off the rails towards the end. The gritty realism which was perhaps the movie’s strongest suit is replaced by odd fantasy sequences, such as the fugitive couple suddenly dressed, in the middle of a forest, as if they were attending a Victorian embassy ball. I’m not certain what the point of these elements, or the anachronistic pop songs were. I am certain that they didn’t enhance my appreciation of the film in any way, and that’s a shame, considering how assured it had been in the early going.

There’s no doubt aboriginal Australians received a really bad deal from their government, up until very recent times. As this film documents, they were forced off their lands, and their children frequently taken away as wards of the state. Even those who served their country honourably in World War II, like Waru Banganha  (Cook), were denied basic civil rights on their return to civilian life. Hard to blame Waru for going berserk, and killing some of the Mackay family who had sexually abused his wife, Jarah (Lane), and their daughter, Maggie (Williams), while he was fighting in the jungle. Worse is then to follow, as Jarah is gang-raped while in custody, in an attempt to get her husband’s location. “Don’t let what they did you destroy you,” a friend tells her. Jarah responds with the chilling line at the top of the review. She’s not wrong, as she takes revenge on the Mackays and their cronies, first rescuing and then alongside Waru.

What’s interesting is that, despite his military training, it’s largely Jarah – no mean shot with a gun herself – who takes the lead, and shows little or no mercy. She has decided that they must pay, even those who were only tangentially involved in ripping her family apart, and does so with a clear-headed intensity and ferocity which is wonderful to behold. This kind of story can easily feel like pandering, playing on liberal white guilt, yet McIntyre avoids that. The closest cousin to the body of this picture might be the blaxploitation flicks of the seventies, where the hero or heroine was pushed too far, and eventually stuck it to “the man”. Abosploitation? Though if we’re making up words, it also feels like a “Vegemite Western”, despite the post-war time-frame.

Throughout this, there have been flashbacks and memories that could be dreams. However, these have generally been restrained, and if not maybe adding too much to the film, don’t feel like they hurt it. That changed in the final third, with the pace dropping close to zero, just when it should be ramping up to a climax with all guns blazing. I will admit in particular to rolling my eyes at the redemptive fate of the main antagonist, who deserved considerably worse than he received. The energy and momentum this possessed, just about carries the film over the finish line. Yet I can’t help feeling. it should have been a great deal more effective.

Dir: Victoria Wharfe McIntyre
Star: Alexis Lane, Shaka Cook, Dean Kyrwood, Dalara Williams