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Other reviewers have given the makers of this screen story a bit of an undeserved caning.
Is it genre-fare written to an apparent familiar formula? Yes. There is a practical limit to how many stories can be really original any more.
The story backbone has been told in many forms before and being a writer, I had a fair clue how it was going to conclude. The characters were drawn well by their respective actors.
Was the story well executed? Yes I think it was. It was also raised beyond slam, bamm and drink the bourbon. Any more detail and I will be publishing spoilers.
Contrary to the genre, the young character wass written without smart backanswers, emotional hystrionics and generally unlikeable behaviour towards adults.
The writers wisely avoided the cliche of victim aggression and acting out towards the rescuer in some sort of emotional and revelationary rehook into a new story chapter. That has been overdone so much over the years as to be maukish.
The young actor gives a surprisingly restrained performance, maybe influenced by Liam Neeson or carefully directed or both.
There were opportunities in the story for a director to be tempted into a few clammy cliches which were thankfully avoided.
The locations were not recognisable from other movies so that was a refreshing change.
With the music underscore, I was quite impressed. Part of the head and tail bookends seem to be homage to two other films from the 80s and 90s in their arrangement and tone colours. However they were entirely original and skillfully woven.
The underscore through the film does not draw attention and may have been even left absent for all I know. That is when underscores work best. No musical distractions were necessary anywhere to "save" the film. That speaks for the work done by the writer and director more so than folk may realise.
If you have the opportunity to see the film in a cinema, I recommend you do so.
score 8/10
darangulafilm 21 January 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6511062/ |
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26-1-2021 01:59:07
