What We Found

Heard from news about the gun shot in American school field. This movie have a side message the seriousness of the gun problem in US. For the storyline, I feel it's just mediocre. At least it didn't touch my heart and echo on the story.

I appreciated the suspense and the story line of the film. The kids did a great job!

Every once in a while, I feel a movie deserves a bit of love and support and this is one of them. Whoever cast this film knew what they were doing with the 3 young leads. You believe in their friendship and you care about them all. Further, the way the script interweaves their backstories with the lives of the adults around them, is admirable. It's a story you enjoy watching play out. Mind you, it's not a big budget film, but rather appears to be made for Amazon Prime or something along those lines. But you will be drawn into this and when it's over you will have enjoyed the unique ride it takes you on. Hard to believe it's from 2020, as it simply sticks to entertainment and avoids virtue signaling completely. That alone makes it worth some support.. Enjoy!

The movie is alright, not great but not bad either. The acting is good as well... again, not amazing but solid performance overall. The kids are well cast and have a good chemistry.

Overall, it had me too often scratching my head because the tone switched so often. It is marked as a thriller but in parts it was almost like one of those 80ies kids' adventure movies. Apart form that in parts it was suddenly very dramatic and touching a variety of subjects and then it was back to action. I liked the story overall but they seemed to try to cram to much into the 110 minutes. Many (often quite serious subjects) were touched upon but didn't go anywhere, backstories of characters were told but did not really impact the story in any way. This made the movie feel stuffed but empty.. like white bread without any toppings. Some aspects of police work seemed exceptionally realistic and others like how a kid imagines police work. The score seemed a bit over the top and very disconnected which enforced the different impressions between scenes (lighthearted, comedic piece for the mobile scene, dramatic orchestra for the police captain's backstory). The camera work was good (to my untrained eye) and the editing seemed fine (apart from a few strange cuts here and there).

Basically, the movie was okay but it pulled me out of my willing suspension of disbelief way too often. I can't recommend or not recommend because judging from other reviews, some people clearly enjoyed it enough. You should watch it and.form your own opinion. Just be aware that it's not a masterpiece. All in all it did make me watch, even though it was a carousel of being.tense/thrilled, amused and slighty perplexed.

The main reason I heard about this movie is because Elizabeth Mitchell is in it. Though I knew she would only play a small supporting role, I gave it a try anyway, hoping the movie wouldn't suffer too much from typical budget-related indie-film problems. And at least to a certain extent, it did not.

The overall style and camera work is quite decent. Sure, with a smaller budget, there aren't any fancy locations or large crowd scenes or similar, and that's to be expected, but the team did the best with what they had. I definitely didn't expect the kind of action sequence at the river toward the end of the movie. And they also tried to add some visual variety using (I assume) a camera drone for some of the establishing shots.

Another thumbs up goes to the cast. I wasn't familiar with any of the kids before watching this movie but I think we'll see more of them in the future. They played well together and made the most of the lines they were given.

But this brings me to the main shortcoming of this movie: the script. Or, maybe it wasn't so much the script itself but things had to be cut or were edited poorly -- I can't tell. I just know that the story tried to do too much and ended up saying too little. Too many issues were crammed into one movie: drug trafficking, gun violence, corrupt cops, bullying, abusive parents, the stereotypical missing black father (let's retire this cliché for a while, shall we?), the usual high-school drama, and above all, a murder mystery.

It's just too much, and none of these issues get enough room to breathe and to develop their full potential. It also affects the characters, who often remain underdeveloped and leave the audience waiting for something to really connect with. And in the end, everything gets wrapped up too neatly, and it feels like the creators tried to tick off as many "drama, baby!" boxes as possible without really dealing with all the repercussions.

At the end of the day, it's a decent indie movie. Not one of the best, but certainly not one of the worst I've seen either. If you have an afternoon or evening to spare, give it a try. Indie movies can always use our support, and this cast deserves some more attention. Just keep your expectations low with regard to the story / twists.

Looking forward to the next projects of everybody involved in "What We Found".