Vantec Reviews

The Eve (I) (2015)

Abysmal

[2/10 · 11 May 2015]

Four twenty-somethings travel to an abandoned Martha's Vineyards to celebrate the new year and 'reconnect'. Interpersonal frictions and emotional trauma soon interrupt the festivities and as the first body unexplainedly drops so does the plot's plausibility. The surviving three retreat to the cabin until the end with the lights off. It's as exciting as it sounds.

Nothing here works. The writing is horrendous with lines beyond saving by A-list actors, and these are very far from A-list actors. The script is chock full of clichés and hilarious verbal clunkers, the false leads are insulting, the tension MIA, the motives nearly incomprehensible and the performances bizarrely disinterested. The first death among old friends elicits all the emotional shock of a rainy day. Not one character is likable. The guilty party is exactly who you thought from the start.

'The Eve' is to film what parrot talk is to speech; aping without content. There is no shortage of horrible movies to watch instead of this one, just avoid.

Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)

Rather silly....

[4/10 · 31 March 2013]

Few today consider the original Red Dawn a serious movie. Any resonance its paranoid vision held of a United States overrun by the Cuban army for audiences of the Eighties long faded to kitsch. It survives mostly as a B classic, still a pleasant time waster for John Milius' battle scenes and very strong cast. 'Tomorrow, When the War Began', Australia's take on the theme featuring an unnamed North Korean armed force, doesn't benefit from its inspiration's rich resources. While at first glance it may seem unfair to hold Stuart Beattie - in what appears to be his directorial debut - responsible for not rising above a very silly script, he does share writing credits.

All starts well enough. A familiar group of mismatched small-town teens return from a weekend back country trip to find their homes abandoned and families interred in POW camps. After a few familiar adventures and misadventures they grasp the gravity of the situation, find themselves and decide on a course of action. The problem is everything in between. The situations and actions are so ridiculous it's a race to the tactical bottom between teens 'hiding' in hillside homes with bright camp lanterns shining through every window and an NK army that left infrared and drones in Pyongyang. The lack of preparation leaves teens free to travel open roads on bright sunny days, explore the abandoned town at night with high intensity flashlights, and move about almost unencumbered while a half million occupiers relentlessly stream onshore.

Even granted that the original novel was written for a teen audience, the distracting pop music track and NK ineptitude interlaced with chatting about boys, relationships and stuff in the middle of resistance strikes ultimately explodes all plausibility from the affair and with it any possibility of tension. If you're in the mood for the next best thing to a Disney remake of Red Dawn starring Miley Cirrus, this is your movie.

Enter Nowhere (2011)

Simple and effective

[7/10 · 15 April 2012]

An indy without benefit of name director or stars, this is still one worth catching for those who prefer their supernatural in the tradition of "Outer Limits" or "The Twilight Zone". In true Serling-esque fashion three strangers arrive separately at the abandoned cabin that forms the setting for most of the story, one that convincingly fleshes out recognizable relationships between a man and two women who at first share little more in common than a need to get home. Each failed trip into the woods reveals something of their situation and each other, moving steadily toward a final revelation kept well under wraps.

Limited locale puts extra reliance on the cast and they deliver solidly. Special credit though goes to Sara Paxton, who so impressed in "The Innkeepers", as the petty thief skirting the edge of control.

For an obvious work of limited resources, "Enter Nowhere" makes excellent use of them all to come up with one of the better small films I've seen in a while.

12:01 (1993 TV Movie)

Once is Plenty

[4/10 · 9 April 2012]

The dead end clerical life of lovable loser Barry Thomas (Jonathan Silverman) literally goes for a loop when an atomic mishap at work traps him in a time bubble. Every morning the alarm clock announces the same Tuesday and every afternoon Barry is forced to witness the murder of Lisa, the brilliant co-worker he adores from a distance. Like other TV movies of its time, this one hedges its bets with the kitchen sink approach of hinging the resolution to both misfortunes on an industrial espionage mystery.

1993's leaner 'Groundhog Day', from which 12:01 borrows much, demonstrates the pitfalls of tripling down. The plot is as credible as Barry's predicament. Helen Slater as the love interest is appealing if slightly bland and confused, and much too trusting of "I'm a time traveller, baby" advances. The bigger problem however is Barry. On the surface a cloying, goofy good guy recognizable from dozens of 90's sitcoms, he expresses the most distress about Lisa's death that he missed the chance to sleep with her. His reaction to the world altering realization of time travel is lame humour and he's frustratingly slow on the uptake. The writers seem to forget only Barry recalls his previous Tuesdays with Lisa. Real coworkers would respond with repulsion and disciplinary action to Barry's approaches later in the movie. The result is a confused, unconvincing mess mixing phony love-at-first-sight platitudes with uncomfortable sexual pursuit. Solid performances from Hollywood stalwarts like Martin Landau go wasted.

12:01 is a very forgettable time waster for those hoping for a return to formulaic 90's TV plots, an exercise in prime-time déjà vu minus the laugh track. Watch Groundhog Day over instead.

Catch .44 (2011)

Pulp Reservoir Desperado Proof

[4/10 · 4 December 2011]

Like him or not few discount Tarantino's influence on contemporary cinema. Catch .44 takes it to Xerox levels. Most elements of this film were lifted wholesale from his later work: attractive, hip and smart young women stuck beneath their true potential in a man's world, heist gone wrong, staccato time lines interleaved with flashbacks, double crosses, comic book fonts and groovy pop music, roadside diners serving 'clever' banter and gun play with a side of monologues. And on and on.

The craft and pacing of the originals is unfortunately MIA. The plot is poorly stitched together, contradictory and incredulous. The characters are mostly annoying clichés. Willis looks fresh from an all-night bender and Whitaker affects one of the most stilted accents in film history. Both are completely wasted.

Catch .44 is the Tijuana Rolex of Tarantino films. Best avoided.

Love (I) (2011)

Stunning

[9/10 · 8 November 2011]

Solitary confinement aboard a faltering space station isn't blockbuster Hollywood material. Those expecting Bay pyrotechnics will rightfully feel cheated. 'Love' is a film about the human condition, not science, and an unexpected jewel of a film.

Set in the near future, Captain Lee Miller is the first in twenty years to board the ISS space station, assigned to repair and reactivate. Early in the mission all contact with earth is lost after a final apologetic recorded message of 'things going on down here' and advice to hold tight. Interspersed with events from the American Civil War, numerically indexed testimonials and reminisces of random strangers, encroaching hallucinations and madness, 'Love' documents Lee desperately following that advice to the end as ISS fails around him.

'Love' is beautifully shot and beautifully paced. Rare today it treats every character with respect and dignity, always inclusive and never ridiculing. Emotions and reactions ring true. The dialogue is intelligent and real. The score is perfect. It demands attention, setting fleetingly on critical plot elements, not a movie that rewards distractions. A surprise future classic worth seeing.

The Man from Earth (2007)

Clever but deeply flawed

[6/10 · 10 February 2008]

'The Man from Earth' is one of those occasional films which generates far more controversy than anything on screen justifies. It won't impress the well read, the ideas are nowhere near as brilliant or learned as many claim. Fair warning: for many this movie will be the first blush with concepts millennia old. In the excitement they'll take affront to any criticism. When reading these reviews recall many considered the conceptual adaptation of Plato's Cave in 'The Matrix' profound too.

History professor John Oldman is dismayed when his plan to skip out on a prized tenureship for a new life is temporarily sidetracked by a handful of close colleagues who arrive at his home for an impromptu send off. A bottle of Johnnie Walker Green, a comforting fire and the prodding of concerned friends eventually convince him to open up and reveal what drives him to abandon a brilliant and rewarding future without goodbye. The rest of the film is a living room discussion of and challenge to his explanation, John's claim to have been born in pre-history and moving every ten years before it becomes apparent he never ages.

Whatever interest the film creates in examining that claim rides almost entirely on its attention to the small details of educated discourse and David Lee Smith's convincing portrayal of Oldman. He hits just the right balance of compassion, detachment and weariness to convince without revealing if the tale is true. Tony Todd also lends much needed support as his skeptical scientific friend excited at the prospect. (It's great to see him in a role that doesn't involve malevolent spirits or serial killers.) Unfortunately, even with well over five hundred shared IMDb Filmography entries the remaining cast give surprisingly uneven and over-the-top performances. That, along with overwrought direction and an unconvincing script, consign this movie to also-ran status.

After a promising start focused on the nature of history and evidence it appears the writers lose confidence in the concept of a fourteen thousand year old man holding your interest. A love story gets folded in. From humble beginnings as a plains hunter John claims increasingly improbable and extraordinary experiences, including contact with pivotal figures of art and history, presence at pivotal events in history, and finally culminating with a claim of being perhaps the most pivotal figure of history. Things quickly go off the rails. From detached skepticism and concern for his sanity his erudite audience grows increasingly irrational and emotional in reverse proportion to the probability of John's claims. As the evening progresses Oldman's tale becomes more convincing than their reactions. Eventually one breaks down in tears over a claim regarding their religion, another pulls a gun for no coherent reason. The penultimate scene in which the film reveals the true nature of Oldman's birth hinges on a final unnecessary improbability of staggering proportions. Little past the midpoint rings probable or likely, it ends in a shambles.

Still, for an indie movie that's essentially ninety minutes of living room banter something clicks in spite of the generally flawed acting and unbelievable script. It won't change your life any more than 'The Matrix' did, but it's worth a rent if you're the religiously tolerant kind in the mood for something different.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

Where franchises go when they die.

[3/10 · 2 February 2008]

AVP-R's starting point is its predecessor's joke ending. The new Predator/Alien hybrid kills the departing ship's crew, causing it to crash back to Earth near a mid-West American town. The hybrid survives to escape the wreckage. On the home planet, a Predator remotely watching events unfold heads for Earth to hunt its new prey. Their battle soon engulfs the town.

Unfortunately instead of checking the taps before leaving our sentient interstellar warrior forgets to pack weapons, giving the filmmakers an opportunity to pad time and relive one of many AVP scenes as it arms itself from the crashed ship. Fans of the original Predator administering field medical and trailing phosphorescent green blood get the chance to see it again verbatim too. Maybe enjoyed the discarding of armor and face shield to fight Arnold man-to-bug? You're in luck, it's here too. Skinned soldiers? At first diligent to destroy any evidence of an alien presence with a bottomless bottle of phosphorescent blue 'acid', this Predator couldn't resist taking one human trophy and leaving the carcass hung like a big neon sign. Nor could the film makers. Unbelievable plot elements and scenes lifted wholesale from previous installments prove central motifs for AVP-R.

That is until the writers tire of stealing from earlier films and start mining stock clichés. Teen angst, teen romance, teen rivalry, big brother back in town fresh from prison and 'cigarette man' conniving government officials all do duty. The few novelties are often repugnant and adolescent; lurid close-up broods of screeching aliens bursting from bellies of hospitalized expectant mothers for example. Lovingly rendered in Walmart CGI, AVP-R stands low as the uncontested worst of either franchise and arguably the nail in this offshoot's coffin. One can only hope it proves so to the careers of those who dropped this cynical by-the-numbers bomb on the public.

The Number 23 (2007)

Less than the sum of its parts

[5/10 · 23 January 2008]

A potentially memorable and novel movie sunk by lacklustre direction and misguided casting. Jim Carrey is Walter, perfect father and dog catcher, improbably married to still gorgeous and devoted Virginia Madsen with whom he shares the ideal marriage, the perfect teenage son and a wonderful home. Through a series of bizarre coincidences his wife Agatha is uncontrollably drawn into buying him a mysterious self-published book - The Number 23 - relating the story of an omnipresent force driving its central character to madness by manifesting '23' in all aspects of his life. As Walter immerses himself in it he grows convinced the curse is real and the book his biography, igniting a desperate struggle to contact its author and reveal its mysteries before his family is destroyed.

It's a clever concept, playing on the tension between the numerological book as an inescapable force propelling Walter towards destruction counterbalanced by his equally dangerous obsession with it as his only path to salvation. Regrettably instead of a layered approach we get simple Hollywood clichés: fog machines, nightmare sequences, flashbacks and haunted dogs. The movie never convincingly infuses the supernatural into Walter's world, disjointedly jumping between them whenever the book mystery falters. The number curse ultimately feels like a plot device to rescue the movie's momentum instead of integral to the narrative, another smoke effect eventually discarded in favour of wild coincidence to tie the few plot lines together it bothers to close.

Sinking the film further is Carrey's woeful miscasting in the dual role of loving father and the book's central character, detective Fingerling. A 'father of the year' crown can't overcome that far from warm and empathetic, outside the home he's insincere and sarcastic, typically smirking, a smart ass who enjoys ridiculing elderly strangers walking dogs and verbally abusing medical professionals. The transformation from paternal model to paranoid threat isn't horrifying when Carrey's bipolar dad makes it credible from the start. As 50's lady killer Fingerling he's completely out of his depth. The role targets a menacing goth/noir outsider in black overcoat and black silk shirt, long black hair oiled back, covered in black-ink tattoos and brandishing a saxophone. It hits Woody Allen channelling Marv from Sin City. Fingerling gets significant screen time with no hope of working.

A potential supernatural cult classic, it's soon forgotten.

The Invisible (2007)

Swing for the bleachers Annie.

[4/10 · 19 January 2008]

Twenty five year old Justin Chatwin plays Nick Powell, a disaffected and newly graduated high school student who desperately yearns against the wishes of his mother to become a writer. His dreams of escape from a sterile and privileged suburban existence are smashed by the misfortune of crossing local gang boss Annie Newton, played by runway model waif Margarita Levieva. She's established as a real gangster deal by dressing collar up, completely in black and with toque and hood indoors or out. That a dynamite fashion sense and 3" pocket knife are the only requirements to convince her underworld don't mess with Annie as she stands down felons, carjackers, cops and other undesirables twice her size plus through the force of her glare tells you where this is going. As we're informed repeatedly, "that girl's out of control".

Through a series of coincidences, misunderstandings and betrayals Annie comes to believe against all reason Nick ratted her out to the police and launches a relationship transforming them both by hitting him with a car, inflicting grievous bodily harm with a baseball bat and discarding his mostly dead body into a sewer inexplicably located in a forest. The rest of the film follows Nick's disembodied quest to influence the living around him into finding his failing body before 'mostly' becomes 'all'. The plot becomes less probable from that point forward. After the car chases, shootouts, police pursuits, bird ghosts and Annie's lifting of a sewer grate without tools, when the final redemption arrives and both Nick and Annie are transformed - signaled in Annie's case by the now freed flaxen locks and pastel Flashdance attire - you'll either be fighting back tears or regretting Annie wasn't batting 300 in the forest.

Most frustrating is catching glimpses of the intriguing and much superior original source material - a Swedish novel and movie - through the thick morass of stock clichés and repugnant TV morality. (The movie justifies Annie's streak of theft, assault, extortion and attempted murder with a cold father figure.) I suggest tracking those down before wasting a minute here.

Blood Diamond (2006)

Decent Action Fare

[7/10 · 23 December 2007]

The problem with Blood Diamond isn't so much what it is, but what it purports to be: an important social statement. A third in Danny Archer - the Rhodesian former mercenary and now diamond smuggler well portrayed by DiCaprio - causticly reads aloud from the trite account reporter Jennifer Connelly types of shared harrowing experiences. A sentence or two into the exploitive, over-dramatized narrative she closes her laptop and agrees 'it's crap, and it won't change a thing.' It's an ironic moment.

The genocide of Sierra Leone is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century. Here it's mostly a backdrop for the Adventures of DiCaprio and Connelly. Will Archer retrieve the pink diamond from rebel territory and pay his debts? Will Connelly make a difference? Will love blossom between DiCaprio and Connelly? Will they escape and live happily ever after? What has any of this to do with the slaughter of innocents? Companion Djimon Hounsou's frantic quest to re-unite his family and rescue his kidnapped child from service in the rebel militia takes second place and the death of Sierra Leone a distant third. Both serve mostly as means for putting DiCaprio into new tense situations. Think shootouts, car chases and exposing international diamond smuggling scandals.

Without its pretensions Blood Diamond stands as a pretty good action/romance. Connelly is unconvincing as the far too beautiful and earnest battle-hardened field reporter but Hounsou's fisherman/father drawn into DiCaprio's quest for riches is well acted, if let down by the screenwriter's incessant need to force his character into insanely stupid and self-destructive acts for the sake of creating yet more 'tense situations'. It's well shot with memorable action sequences. When the film shifts long enough from its center to focus on the world of RUF child-soldiers or explore the relationship between DiCaprio's old white Africa and Hounsou's by-standing innocence, things get interesting. In the right hands it would make for an excellent movie with an important message.

With its false pretensions though the film ironically ranks as just another in a long line of exploitations, this time making money directly from African tragedy rather than creating one for the sake of rubber, oil or diamonds. For best effect watch it as a socially conscious 'Die Hard'.

The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief (2006)

Unique

[8/10 · 12 December 2007]

A wonderful look at the world of hosting in Osaka, where young pretty boys preen and hone the art of fulfilling - incompletely - the fantasies of their female clients at a tragic cost. In a refreshing change from the trend of centering every documentary on the documentary's maker, Jake Clennell stays off camera and is rarely heard. The staff and clientèle of host club Rakkyo Café are free to reveal their stories and insights without interference or dramatizations. Neither are needed as the stories are riveting. Unappreciated sacrifices and unfulfilled desires clash with deceit and opportunism in an atmosphere ruled by cold business ethics and marketed emotions. Clennell structures the narratives beautifully, winding through the artifice to the underlying truth as a night at the club unfolds. By the closing scenes of spent hosts staggering home in the early Osakan morning it's hard not to empathize with their emptiness or envy their bank accounts. One of the best documentaries I've seen, the main complaint is clocking in at just over seventy minutes it's too short. Worth hunting down.

First Snow (2006)

Empty Fate

[7/10 · 25 November 2007]

Judging from other reviews and comments, missing Guy Pearce's performance in 'Memento' helps appreciate 'First Snow'. Here he impressively fleshes out the script's thin characterization of Jimmy Stark, a traveling salesman and life-long huckster who becomes convinced his impending death was foretold by a roadside psychic. The chance encounter sets into motion events he torments himself and those around him to control, thrashing from one catastrophe to another uncertain of their significance. Ultimately everything matters, major and minor, past and present cleverly interlocking for a final resolution. It's a solid and memorable portrayal of a man simultaneously forced to face both his past and his fate.

As good as it is though it's trumped by J.K. Simmons' terrific and too-short portrayal of Vacaro, the middle-aged nomad living out a solitary existence with an old pickup and camper to show for his unique 'gift'. Here the film wonderfully avoids the usual dead Hollywood clichés (humourously contrasted and lampooned at one point) for a resigned true psychic who wants little more than to go fishing. Without histrionics or gesture Simmons is utterly convincing and engrossing throughout.

If only the same can be said of the sum. With two such strong performances focused on the universal question of fate vs. self-determination it's hard to put a finger on why the film never gels. The plot offers up enough clever and well though-out twists, events unfold naturally without reliance on astronomical coincidences to guide them, supporting characters are serviceable and the cinematography fine, yet the viewer is held at a disinterested distance. Part of the blame rests on the rushed and unsatisfying ending, some of it on where the film does rely on clichés to carry sub-plots - the usual romantic candle-lit tub scene for example to develop Jimmy's relationship with his live-in girlfriend. Only when Pearce and Simmons are on screen together did I care about the characters and those scenes were short.

Pearce and Simmons tack points on an otherwise promising but mid-pack film. 7/10.

The Living and the Dead (2006)

Pointless

[4/10 · 12 November 2007]

'The Living and the Dead' portrays the lives of a British noble, his wife and their adult son set in a spectacular country estate. The good days are long past. The estate is in disrepair and at risk of forfeiture, the wife bedridden most of the film and the son clinically psychotic. That sums up the bulk of what can be said with relative certainty about the plot.

The rest is a tumbling mash of conflicting alternate realities, displaced time-lines, hallucinatory visions and fast motion. Director/writer/producer Simon Rumley loves the fast motion. Leo Bill as the son spends much of the film at ten-fold speed, racing through vast expanses of interior, arms and face animated in a failed attempt to impart the viewer his perspective. It doesn't work, quickly growing tiresome and obvious. Rumley's so committed to the technique that clouds, the advancing sun, branches, vehicles, doctors and nurses eventually join the fray. Repeatedly. It's difficult to comprehend why since it has no bearing on the quiet desperation Rumley's grasping at, instead evoking the feel of an Eighties music video or a VW commercial.

It's symptomatic of the film's jettisoning coherency for atmosphere. The first half contradicts the back with no hint of resolution offered. The son proves more criminally insane than clinically yet no reason offered why he wasn't institutionalized. Early in the film when still portrayed as a happy idiot the father is constantly abusive and stern. Fatherly warmth doesn't appear until unconscionable acts are committed. The son roams free past the point any modern Western nation would have seen him incarcerated. We never know why. Likewise the rest of the plot is so artificial and bent to the requirements of intense moments all believability is lost and with it any concern for the characters. The one bright spot is Kate Fahy's terrific portrayal of the wife. She creates the few and fleeting scenes in which the film works as intended. Not content with these minor successes Rumley brushes them aside to make room for more mind-bending plot twists, snatching total failure from the jaws of mediocre success. A movie for the patient only.

In the Dark (II) (2004)

Blair Witch meets the Goonies

[3/10 · 19 October 2007]

Shameless asrtoturfing in the comments section, obvious in the first quarter of the film, warranted an IMDb registration. Don't fall for it, 'In The Dark' is one of the most sloppily conceived, hackneyed and unintentionally incoherent films in a long while.

A group of wild teens break into an abandoned asylum on Halloween night to drink and get high and, their story told by the portable cameras left behind, come face to face with a 'presence' seeking revenge. In a vain attempt to relieve that mind numbing string of clichés the screenwriters employ an admittedly novel device, augmenting the shaky cams with scenes from the facility's security cameras. It's unconvincing and forced. All but one camera are so painfully and clearly positioned for the film instead of surveillance the main effect is annoyance. The characters never behave like people, befalling fates through a staggering display of stupidity and complete lack of sense for self preservation. Aware of a threat watching them from an asylum window as they party outside, the reaction is to run into the asylum. When one of them becomes too overwhelmed to cope, in this film's logic the thing to do is put her to bed in an isolated, unlocked and unguarded room away from the rest where she'll 'be safe'. Not that the viewer is given much reason to care. An all-purpose stream of overlapped yells too often substitutes for dialog - in this scene for fright, that one excess, the next one anger. Horror nor gore approaches that of Robocop 2 and the effects are... missing. The protagonists run around all film in freshly laundered pajamas grimacing.

It's not hard to find zero-budget independent horror films that deliver. This isn't one of them.