Free Fall

Watching a straight to DVD movie is always interesting experience - you never hear about these movies so you don't know what to expect. Some low budget movies can pull off great things with the story despite the limited budget. But this movie needs that budget ......badly.

This thriller premise started out quite interesting with a case of suicide in the corporate environment of finance. There was a whole office of people - "This could get interesting" I thought thinking it may become a great "whodunit" type. However this concept was quickly shot down by everyone leaving the office and the whole direction of the movie becoming quite apparent which totally deflated the thrill and left this movie as a low budget action flick.

Typical bad guy comes along, chases woman throughout office, despite being a professional he has really bad aim when it counts, he likes to walk when chasing people. He then threatens people with his goofy stare and cheesy dialogue.

The woman then makes it to the lift and then over half the movie is based around the lift. The movie should have been more accurately called "Stuck in the Lift"

The final show down between the woman and the guy is laughable - the conclusion of which only then does the movie title Free fall really mean anything.

Nice to watch if you are looking for something to accompany that pizza and beer............and oh so much more beer.

Jane Porter (Sarah Butler) works at Gault Capital. She's shocked when her supervisor Ronald Taft (Ian Gomez) tells her about a co-worker's apparent suicide jump off the building. Thaddeus Gault (Malcolm McDowell) offers her the job to replace him. She uncovers wrongdoing and tells Ronald. Ronald calls in Frank (D.B. Sweeney) to clean up the situation. Jane gets trapped in the elevator.

The writing is rather simplistic. Once she gets stuck in the elevator, the movie also gets a bit stuck. It's a hard premise to work and there is no imagination behind this to get it working. The outside story has no effect. At one point, Jane yells at Frank to "Do Something". I know the feeling. This is confined space thriller without any skills or originality.

'FREE FALL': Two Stars (Out of Five)

Low-budget B action flick about the career driven employee of a corrupt L.A. business, who uncovers incriminating company secrets and is hunted by an assassin; in order to silence her. The chase becomes more interesting when she becomes trapped in a company elevator. The film stars Sarah Butler (of 'I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE' fame), D.B. Sweeney, Ian Gomez and Malcolm McDowell. It was directed by veteran horror movie producer, turned first time feature film director, Malek Akkad and written by Dwayne Alexander Smith. I found the silly thriller to be slightly entertaining but mostly dull and forgettable.

Butler plays Jane Porter, an ambitious young employee of Gault Enterprises. Her boyfriend, Ray (Jayson Blair), wants her to spend less time at work and more time with him; but Jane is obsessed with her job. Her world is thrown upside down when a beloved coworker shows up dead, from an apparent suicide. Jane finds a thumb drive containing secret information about her boss, CEO Thaddeus Gault (McDowell), that most likely got her coworker killed. When another employee, Jane's supervisor Ronald Taft (Gomez), learns of her discovery, he calls in the company's hit-man, Frank (Sweeney), to clean up the mess. Things come to a standstill when Jane gets stuck on an elevator and Frank can't reach her.

The movie is pretty cheesy and filled with laughable suspense and bad acting. It's one saving grace is D.B. Sweeney; he's a delight to watch and he seems to be having a lot of fun playing this psycho killer. McDowell and Gomez are both good too but they're parts are too small. Butler is neither believable or likable, in her role. Most of all the film is just boring and uneventful; it completely lacks any originality or cleverness, at all. It's completely a waste of time; except for when Sweeney is on screen, of course.

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Both the writing and the acting are poor. It moves too slowly. Watch "Not Safe for Work" instead.Though the cast contains some medium-sized actors (McDowell, Sweeney), the writing is likely weighing down the project. The elevator angle slowed down the movie in my opinion. A chase through the building would have kept the tension high as it does in Not Safe. The female protagonist does not convince that there is an impending doom, and the antagonist seems to fumble and bumble more than the money one assumes was spent on his services would imply. I honestly had to take a break from watching half-way through due to lack of interest.

I'm not really sure why the other reviewers (2 at the time of this writing) have given this movie lackluster reviews. I liked the movie. I remember seeing Sarah Butler in "I Spit on Your Graves," and she was fabulous in that. I've seen her in a few other things, mostly guest spots, but she is someone who should be a star. She is a really good actress. She was convincing in this movie as well.

D.B. Sweeney was good in his role, but his role was not written very good. Instead of being someone who is feared, he's the kind of bad guy who's more comical, though it's not intended. He apparently has a magazine clip in his gun that carries more bullets than any that are actually on the market, because it never seems to run out of ammo. Also, when shooting at the girl, he was more likely to hit her if she ran than if she stood in one place. Yes, he could have spent a little time at the gun range learning how to shoot. He had a disagreement with one of his colleagues, so BAM - a wrench to the old thinker solves the problem. He behaved more like a part-time thug than like the chief muscle the founder of a multi-billion dollar company would hire.

Malcolm McDowell should have been used more. Possibly, he was too much money. The film cost $1.5 million. By the look of the movie, I thought they spent more than that. McDowell, Butler, and Sweeney are not nobody's. They're not superstars either, but still.

I gave the movie a 6-star rating, because I thought it was fun and entertaining, which is really all I look for, especially for a movie like this. It could easily have been made for television. However, Sarah Butler gave a realistic performance, and I thought this movie, based on the other two reviews, was going to suck. It did not.