God Don't Make the Laws

First, the acting : On the whole, considering the budget and circumstances (it being a first foray of the director) I've seen much worse acting in films with a much greater pedigree. At times, it's laboured, but not wooden or overtly stilted. So the cast can't be held responsible for failings of the film. The Story isn't really anything "new" either. It has an undercurrent of mystery and mystique, but struggles to engage the viewer by trying way too hard to be enigmatic. If you avoid religiously moral tales, then fear not, this isn't ported from a bible channel.. But a spiritual overseer and play caller is hinted at in the dialogue and the feel of the story. Zero spoilers, but, basically you're watching the town of Rockwell frozen in time after a town tragedy and a young man turns up off the bus and triggers the re commencement of time. Editing and photography are more than adequate, and coupled with the reasonable acting and inoffensive story premise, you'd expect to sit down to watch a low budget B movie that didn't change your life but didn't have you hurling bricks at the screen. You'd expect.. But here's where an unforgivable error of judgement on the part of the Director scuppers ANY chance of engaging his audience... He lets loose the sound editor and the score composer, and basically massacres his own movie. I've seen some awful films, and heard some terrible songs and soundtracks, but this movie is probably the most heavy handed, cheesiest, stinkiest soundtrack I've ever suffered through. Completely jarring, incongruous, overly loud, diabolical lyrics and sweat stained vocals appear from nowhere in situations that lend absolutely no correlation to the story. If you can envisage , say, a sequence of quiet contemplation in a candle lit church, then out of nowhere , with no change of action, a sequence of hip hop tracks followed by a Metallica song suddenly start to play? That's the kind of incongruity in the sound editing. It was so jarring, so contrary to the immersion factor required for movie enjoyment, it left me feeling furious. As such, I can say nothing of the film's storyline or conclusion because I simply didn't care. A woeful series of decisions render this film virtually unwatchable. Give it a miss.

I had been hopeful that this was just getting poor reviews due to the freshmen director, but no this just seems really bad.

I'm generally accepting to plod through a bad movie, but couldn't do so with this and had to stop watching about 30-45min in. Perhaps that means I missed it's twist ending, but I had no interest in sitting through enough of it to make it there.

Acting seemed generally terrible, though I'm less sure that should be blamed on the actors vs the terrible plot/script. The movie was full of clichéd roles/dialog and failed to provide any insight to it's out there premises, such as basketball being "illegal" in any modern US city. Nothing of real interest seemed to be happening, and I couldn't stand to put up with it to reach the end.

I normally don't review things here, but felt it necessary to log in to do so just to lower this movies score, it was that bad and deserves less than the 4.4 it had as of submitting this review.

What a cute movie, almost poetry, was embarking on a different path, ended without explanation, but very sensitive, and captivating, with subliminal messages, cute ... The main girl has charisma ...

God don't make the laws is also called "Frozen moment" in some markets is a strange little indie movie from American first time feature director David Sabbath.

Hawk Kodiak gets out of correctional detention and off the bus in small town Rockwell where he is to get a job, under the supervision of a burger shop owner Eddie. A town where American football count, basketball doesn't. He doesn't fit in, walking around with an "illegal" basketball, and doesn't know the "social codes" The police chief in town is also the football coach, and the maker of the laws "around here", and threatens the newcomer, to make him go away. it seem's like time has been standing still. A young girl tells this story after being caught up by men in black suits after years trying to hold them on distance. This is the start of the film, which in more than one way is quite mystical.

A strange film it is. Some interesting moments, but also sometimes very clichéd. Acting is good from some, others aren't that up to it, but still there some talent both from the film maker as well as in some of the young actors. The "retard"is not always very believable. From time to time the dialog in the film is a bit lame.

Quite annoying choice of songs in the film score makes you think there is some religious twist to it, a fear that is without any hold. A couple of other cuts are great, and suits well. However, the whole time the amateurish acting ruins the film. The idea is not so bad, but the execution is not top notch. If you can see past this, a slow burning story, you might have an OK time watching the movie.

I tried really hard to like this movie - the premise sounds encouraging: a loner boy comes to a small town where basketball is banned following the road traffic death years before of some young people - a bit like 'Footloose' but without the funky music and some added supernatural undertones.

The dialogue's not too bad but some of the acting (Lucas Salvagno, Jason Jay Crabtree) is just shockingly bad. Then we come to Adam White's cinematography and director David Sabbbath's editing. The whole thing has the ambiance of some 1970s porno-flick.

It's saved by the easy-on-the-eye Ella Rae Peck and a hefty performance by Robert Prescott but the production values leave a lot to be desired.