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This film's soundtrack consisted of a lot of mainstream music which gave a great tone to the film, and also helped to differentiate a lot of the little bits and pieces that it was comprised of. Much of the music was also portrayed as coming from a radio, such as the convenience store robbery scene or, one of my favorites, a scene where a creepy stalker turns on his car radio to Gary Jules' version of Mad World – made famous by the film Donnie Darko – as he prepares to break into his victim's house. The music stops suddenly in keeping with a dramatic point in the scene and, after the victim uses the gun to shoot her attacker and her roommate is on his way to dispose of it, the song comes back as the roommate spots the supposed attacker dead in his car. Its a great ironic moment.
In addition to the music itself, I also noticed two biker types at one point sporting Black Label Society patches on the back of their jackets – another music-related copyright. The big concern here is, of course, copyright infringement. I don't know for sure whether all these various rights were secured – for the sake of future marketing and potential sales, I certainly hope so, as no studio or festival will touch it without all the legalities in place.
One thing I really liked about this film was that it began simply with police radio traffic, then a 911 call of the home invasion that kicks off the storyline. The radio traffic sounded very realistic; in fact I thought it might be a nice touch to bring that back on occasion throughout the film as the body count beings to rise. The 911 call, however, sounded far too contrived and scripted. People who call for incidents involving gunshots generally sound a lot more panicked, even if all they're doing is just speaking faster than they normally would. People also don't listen very well to the little things; most police departments have changed the way they answer the phone to “Where is your emergency,” but callers will quite often blurt out what is happening, and the operator must interrupt them to get an address. Episodes of real crime shows like The First 48 or Forensic Files often include excerpts from actual 911 calls, which might be good to listen to.
The film's dialog was mostly clear and easy to understand – the only exception was the Latin gangsters' boss who had a very thick accent and also spoke very quietly, so he was quite difficult to understand. The last thing that I noticed is that while the security guard character is at a firing range, he is able to hear his cell phone ring while still wearing ear protection. I'm being very picky here, but its highly doubtful that the man would have been able to hear such a quiet-sounding ringing sound; often at an indoor range one can barely carry on a conversation with someone standing next to you! (A simple change in commentary to him “feeling” the vibration of the cell phone and adding a humming sound effect can address this issue effectively.)
This movie's $20,000 budget was spent on equipment, meals, and a gas allowance for the cast. While this figure is in the upper middle portion of films critiqued here at Microfilmmaker, it also falls into the category of those shot in California - a state that is already quite expensive, let alone the challenges of trying to shoot a movie there. One is more likely to come across a wider variety of film-related resources and film-grade actors, but the difficulty of obtaining permits coupled with prices will likely start to outweigh those benefits. Feeding and compensating such a large cast for travel had to have cost a good deal of money and, as mentioned before, the difficulty of shooting outdoors must have been additionally complicated by the fact that there was at least one gun in every scene.
The director - himself a veteran actor - was fortunate enough to enlist the assistance of several recognizable faces for this project, including Kevin Sorbo (Hercules), Erika Eleniak (Baywatch), Eddie Jamison (Oceans 11, 12, & 13), Antonio Fargas (Starsky and Hutch), and renown Hollywood stuntman Gene LeBell, just to name a few. The director was also equally fortunate that his famous talent worked for free! I'm jealous.
I really thought this whole movie was going to be one large anti-gun statement (like the anti-climatically, self-loathing film, Shoot 'Em Up), but was actually quite pleasantly surprised that, although it did hover around that side of the argument, the film did skirt back and forth a few times. As expected, many of the people who came across the gun used it to settle arguments or for their own personal gain, but I was pleased to see some instances where, had an intended victim not had the gun for protection, he or she would certainly have been assaulted or killed.
There still remains a few minor issues that probably ought to be ironed out, but their detraction from the film is minimal (though my gun enthusiast husband might disagree on that point). For an actor, making the switch to director can seem like a natural one, but it also brings up a whole new set of challenges. In this case, however, the result is really quite good for a first-time director, and I'm looking forward to seeing more from Scott L. Schwartz!
The open-ended nature of this film leaves room for plenty of discussion and debate as far as gun control laws go, but I think the best statement it makes is to that of human nature - how every person in the movie reacted when the gun came into their possession. Some people already had no problem committing crimes - the gun just enabled them to go further. Others found an over-inflated bravado that led them to do things which they might have only thought about before. And a few had good intentions, but not always the courage to do the right thing. Perhaps the hidden message is that inanimate objects are neither good nor evil - it all depends on what you do with them.
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Content |
8.1 |
Visual
Look |
8.6 |
Use
of Audio |
9.1 |
Use
of Budget |
8.2 |
Lasting
Appeal |
9.0 |
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8.6 |
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The
author of half a dozen screen plays, two novels, and a proficient
camera-woman in her own right, Monika
DeLeeuw-Taylor is Microfilmmaker's lead writing analyst and
one of our top film reviewers. When she's not writing a critique for
Microfilmmaker, she's writing screenplays for Viking Productions. |
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