The Red Maple Leaf

When I read the first few reviews for this film I thoought I was watching a different film to everyone else. , terrible acting. Laughable at times and poor editing. Don't think I will be watching anything with Deangelo involved in again.

The Red Maple Leaf provides for an intriguing and captivating story, although it might sound predictable, it is not. There are moments of darkness, of drama and funny enough, even comedic banter. There is an incredibly large cast of renowned Hollywood actors, perhaps the most I've seen besides the Expendables. I understand that Frank D'Angelo produced, wrote and directed the film in addition to starring in it. That is quite the undertaking, but this film delivers the goods and more. I think I will have to watch the film a second time in order to appreciate it even more. Overall I came away from watching this film feeling fulfilled. Many movies leave you wanting by the end but not this one. Bravo to the cast on making a fantastic film. If you are looking for an interesting and different take on a familiar genre, then give this movie a try, you will not be disappointed.

My Mom watched the film at the Fort Lauderdale Film Festival and told me that if I get a chance to see it I should because I would enjoy it. So, I looked it up and it was playing for a second screening as the closing film of the festival. I told my friends about it and we decided to make it an evening out to watch the movie and attend the closing festivities. I had no expectations as my mom just told me it was a great film. It started off tragically, with a detective losing his family in a car crash. The movie then changes gears into the life of a U.S. Ambassador and his wife whose young daughter went missing one morning in Ottawa Ontario, where the detective is asked to work on this case. Considering this is a movie that has so many moving parts and characters, I feel it was brilliantly directed. My friends and I were entertained through the entire movie, and were able to easily follow along with the entire story line. I was nervous recommending it to 5 girls to watch with me, as everyone is different, and usually people have different ideas of what is entertaining, however, every one of my friends enjoyed the film. I would definitely watch it again, and even recommend it to others. It also happens to feature Eric Roberts who is very sexy and one of my favorite actors.

We live just outside of San Francisco and my husband and I love going to the movies. And we love film festivals because we get to see some wonderful films that sometimes never make it to the big screen. So on the Friday we looked at the schedules of the films that we're playing at CAIFF and spotted The Red Maple Leaf which stood out because of its amazing cast of actors. We decided that we would see it on Saturday night. Well when we got to the theatre, we were caught off guard, it was so full that we thought we were not going to get tickets. We took our place in line and luckily managed to get 2 tickets, I mean luckily, because it was one of the best movies that we have seen in a long time. It's so nice to see that they can still make movies with real stories every once in a while. The icing of evening was that the star and director of the movie, Frank D'Angelo was there in the audience. He was right there watching the movie with us to everyone's surprise. When the movie ended they introduced him to a great ovation and then he took questions from the audience which made the evening even more special.

Now I do believe IMDB has become the Disneyland for hired guns and mouthpieces to give other viewers fake, phony and lying reviews. When a film is such a lousy production, yet there are so many fake 10/10 reviews rushed in like swarming locusts giving blind praises to it. Obviously, these reviewers are either friends, relatives or all those people who are friends or relatives of these friends and relatives.

This film, before it's even showed its title, was doomed to be a lousy film. The script was so poor and the directing so lazy. After the traffic accident, this guy's wife and daughter were both killed in the crash, yet this guy who survived, just sat on the rear bumper of an ambulance, without any bruise, any trace of blood, the guy was still in a perfect condition. If his wife and daughter were both killed in a fatal crash, this guy at least should have some bruises, wounds and some bleedings, yet he's in perfect condition. Then when his colleague knocked on his door but he didn't answer, the guy just found the door key in a colorful ceramic cartoon figure which was so stupidly put on a stone in this guy's front yard. Who would be that stupid putting his front door key in such obvious place? What a lousy arrangement.

Then we got the more damaging proof that this film is a bad one, since there are so many bad actors who only showed in bad B movies. When film proceeded along, you just couldn't help but jumped out of your chair and yelled: "Jesus, what a stupid movie!!"