Directed by: Terry McMahon
Starring: Emmett Scanlan, Leigh Arnold, Valeria Bandino
A ruling class sociopath kills a working class girl in a hit and run and uses a deck of playing cards to determine his fate.
I had to turn to IMDB for the above short synopsis as this anti-film is so badly made on every level it's impossible to glean any modicum of plot from it as a viewer. I'm conflicted even writing this review as I feel doing so may legitimise it and somehow elevate it to the status of a film. This is not a film. There is nothing on show here save for a few acceptable performances that even relates to the process of film-making. Pointing a camera in the general direction of some actors is not film-making. I was almost ready to blame the poor projection of the cinema so badly framed and out of focus was this. The sound mix is diabolical, it's a struggle to pick up any of the dialogue, and boy is there a lot of it. The script seems to be written by a fourteen year old whose favorite movie is "Fight Club". Before the non-film has barely begun the main character is ranting in a voiceover about how we "think we know him". Sorry mate, we're two minutes in, I don't know you from Jack. Perhaps the writer has a background in radio drama as there's certainly no visual storytelling evidenced here.
The downside of Catholic countries who liberate themselves from the church is that their national cinema suffers for a period, films suddenly become full of gratuitous and puerile sex. Look at French, Italian and Spanish movies from the seventies and eighties and you'll see what I mean. Just because you can now show characters masturbating doesn't mean you should. Ireland is a bit behind the curve but now we're going through our semi liberation and our films are suffering in the same way. Every second scene in this film seems to be of someone knocking one out. Perhaps Ireland should develop a porn industry as we certainly can't get a half decent film industry together.
I've never before advocated asking for your money back at the cinema, after all the cinema owners didn't make the film, you pay your money and take your chances. This however is of a quality so low that it's a scam that any cinema would have the cheek to charge customers for the "privilege" of seeing it. I'm embarrassed that the film board of my country would put their name to something like this and can honestly say I've never seen a film this amateurish screened in a commercial cinema.
0/10