Tainted

From the trailer I was worried this would just be gratuitous violence for violence's sake... but it was more! A pleasant surprise!

Great acting and wonderfully dark atmosphere.... You can almost feel the weight of a harsh harsh life of pain, violence and suffering on the main character's life.

The story-line/plot is very cliched but because of the great acting and the well main 'characters', those cliches somehow didn't annoy me (as it normally would have me rolling my eyes and groaning). It seems to me that this film is constantly pushing a message - which I appreciate! (I hate senseless violence and I hate glorifying violent or criminal lifestyles like mob-life or gangs even more!) This film does the opposite, it shows that those lifestyles of crime - drugs, murder etc are horrible, dark and that they TAINT you... for the rest of your life... There is a MORAL to this story which those horrible Hollywood movies usually don't show and for that, I have to write this, so it's not overlooked! Oh.. the moral, as i said above? It's about how low behavior 'taints' you and that it is UGLY. Not a high quality 'great' movie but definitely well above average and worth a look!

The cast here is mostly little known talent, at least to American audiences. The director is new to the genre, and possibly new to the business, for that matter. What counts is the talent displayed by everyone involved. Even the bit actors turn in good work, and the director avoids many of the pitfalls that directors with longer histories routinely fall for through hubris/inattention. In this film it's almost as if the director sees this as his only chance to make something good and he's careful to do so.

The script is low-key and almost bare bones, so there's nothing much in the way of the storytelling. This is not a feel good film by any measure. It does avoid being relentlessly depressing, though the circumstances in which some of the characters find themselves are bleak.

Greetings again from the darkness. Filmed in Canada with a mostly Canadian cast by a Canadian director, we are reminded how challenging it is to make a low budget action-thriller. Writer-director Brent Cote delivers a masterclass in genre clichés, yet there's enough here to keep anyone initially interested around for 90 minutes.

Alan Van Sprang (SAW III) stars as Lance, the rare Neo-Nazi with ties to both the Aryan Brotherhood and Russian mafia who is also the good guy in the story. Lance has recently been released after serving 15 years in prison, and he's just trying to live out a quiet life by surrounding himself with pictures of beautiful scenery as he dreams of escaping the world he's known. He clocks in and out at work, and mostly avoids chit-chatting with others, except for his friendly neighbor Anna (Sara Waislgas), who happens to sing at the local lounge where Lance periodically buys a bottle.

Of course, it's only a matter of time (maybe 10 minutes) before Lance's old world catches up with his new one. Gregor (John Ralston, READY OR NOT, 2019), his old Russian handler, needs him to kill a few guys that have been infringing on the meth business. So, are you keeping score on clichés? We have an ex-con trying to start over. We have 'one last job'. We have a girl caught in the middle ... there's always a girl! We have the Aryan Brotherhood versus the Russian mob. Plus, we have the underling trying to earn his stripes. In this case, it's Gregor's nephew Malik (Aaron Poole). There's even an imposing Russian mobster named Vladimir (John Ryhs-Davies from two huge franchises - Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones).

The film begins with a Pope Francis quote about evil and violence, but ironically, the film's best segments involve neither evil nor violence. Despite his past, Lance is a brooding type who listens to blues music, and serves up inspiring words to Anna. The film offers a new and very quick (though surely indescribably painful) method for removing swastika tattoos from one's chest, although you should know the violent scenes are few in number and brief in runtime. Gregor's philosophy towards Lance is that "a fighter needs to fight", but we actually enjoy Lance's time with Anna more than the gangster bits. Filmmaker Cote may follow the checklist for this genre, however, we do hand it to him for a twist at the end.

This is novice writer and director Brent Cote's first full length feature film, with only a handful of shorts and a TV movie on his resume.

Although I found the pacing extremely slow, I was still glued to the screen waiting for what will happen next. The normally comfortable 90 min runtime could've used 10-15 min of trimming on some stretched out and/or unnecessary scenes. Although the story is nothing revolutionary, imo, it was told really well and convincingly, with a perfect ending, and in a refreshingly un-Hollywoodish manner.

The score was surprisingly perfect, especially for a low budget B-film, as was the soundtrack. Directing and cinematography were on point and showcased the film very well. Casting was decent, with most of the characters convincing in their roles. You could tell that better cast-directing by a seasoned director would've added the missing ummph in some dialogued scenes.

But we need to cut some slack for the few rookie mistakes Cote made, as new filmmakers have to start somewhere, right? Still, a very enjoyable neo-noir styled low budget B-grade crime thriller. It's a 7.5 rounded up to 8/10 from me. To see more of my 1000+ ratings and 900+ reviews, click on my username.

All in all this is not a bad movie - the acting is fine and so is the cinematography. But this kind of plot has been done ad nauseam and it's nothing new - so essentially it is a waste of time given how much selection there is these days.