While I was cruising around Tubi, I stumbled across this movie, and I decided to give it a chance because its plot description sounded intriguing and promising. However, a few seconds into watching the movie, the credits state that the movie was funded by Telefilm Canada - a government film financer that uses taxpayers' money almost all the time to fund movies that no one wants to see for good reasons. I instantly predicted that the director would also be the writer (another common theme in Telefilm funded movies), and I was proven correct.
But I decided to stick it out, and I managed to watch the whole thing.... though I really wish I didn't, even though I watched it for free. Despite its premise, the movie is extremely boring. There is pretty much no suspense, and when there is suspense it's so low key that you will know that nothing bad is actually going to happen at the end of a "suspenseful" scene. The movie really moves at a snail's pace.
There are further problems. The movie actually tries to be funny at times, but the humor not only doesn't mix well with the drama, it's not funny at all by itself or with the other material. Also, the characters keep speaking dialogue that doesn't sound like anyone in real life would speak even under these circumstances, made worse that the cast can't seem to even make a valiant effort to try and sell the audience this dialogue. The whole production also suffers from the fact that the entire movie looks really cheap, with minimal production values and substandard photography. It looks like a low budget Canadian television show.
It's easy to see why the distributor only (briefly) released this movie to just three theaters in Canada. The whole movie is proof that Telefilm has got to severely cut down the projects it funds where the director is also the writer. The best thing that could be done would be to solicit screenplays from people that are just talented writers and not directors, choose the screenplays that are actually good, and then offer them to directors. Until then, we are just going to get more waste of taxpayers' dollars like this movie.
But I decided to stick it out, and I managed to watch the whole thing.... though I really wish I didn't, even though I watched it for free. Despite its premise, the movie is extremely boring. There is pretty much no suspense, and when there is suspense it's so low key that you will know that nothing bad is actually going to happen at the end of a "suspenseful" scene. The movie really moves at a snail's pace.
There are further problems. The movie actually tries to be funny at times, but the humor not only doesn't mix well with the drama, it's not funny at all by itself or with the other material. Also, the characters keep speaking dialogue that doesn't sound like anyone in real life would speak even under these circumstances, made worse that the cast can't seem to even make a valiant effort to try and sell the audience this dialogue. The whole production also suffers from the fact that the entire movie looks really cheap, with minimal production values and substandard photography. It looks like a low budget Canadian television show.
It's easy to see why the distributor only (briefly) released this movie to just three theaters in Canada. The whole movie is proof that Telefilm has got to severely cut down the projects it funds where the director is also the writer. The best thing that could be done would be to solicit screenplays from people that are just talented writers and not directors, choose the screenplays that are actually good, and then offer them to directors. Until then, we are just going to get more waste of taxpayers' dollars like this movie.