Review of 11:14

11:14 (2003)
7/10
Only one major flaw
23 May 2006
There's an old list of simple guidelines that a good script should follow - One of the most important is to make your characters smart, as opposed to them all being dumb as a rock. If your characters make an endless stream of bad decisions, it's way too easy for the writer to have them get into bad situations, and the audience looses interest in stupid characters. You've written a poor story when all the conflict could be resolved if the characters had just stopped to think for a moment. "11:14" suffers from this problem. All the main characters make stupid decisions where they break the law unnecessarily. The only deaths are accidental, so if they were just honest and told the police what happened, they would be fine. Instead they make dumb choices, and as a result you really don't care what happens to them - you just end up thinking that they get what they deserve.

That said, that's the only thing wrong with this film. The pace is great, great editing, clever non-linear story structure, solid acting, and best of all, a great attention to detail. If you watch the film again, you start to notice even more little details that show that Greg Marcks really did a fantastic job, on nearly all levels. If he writes smarter characters in his future films, then he's got a very bright future as a filmmaker.
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