Grace and the Storm

This film is an amazing example of what you can do with a great story and a small budget! From the look of the film, I would say GRACE AND THE STORM was shot entirely on location in New York City, and the cast (although very competent and talented) is mostly made up of unknowns. But don't let that deter you from seeing this beautiful, incredibly suspenseful picture.

At first I thought this would be another low-budget SOPRANOS rip-off. I can go the rest of my life without seeing another second-rate Scorsese make his own low-budget version of the "last big score" film. But GRACE AND THE STORM is really nothing like that, in fact it's probably on par with some of the best SOPRANOS episodes. Think some of the stranger episodes from the 4th season, where Tony was having the weird dream sequences, and you're almost there. Once the Grace deal is in motion, you won't want to miss a single word. Trust me, there's a huge payoff coming. It was nice seeing Dean Cameron, he does a fantastic variation on the old stoner characters he played in the 80s. My score: 9/10!

A couple months ago, a number of talkbackers on AICN were making lists of the top 10 twists in films ever. And for some reason, "Grace and the Storm" was listed on several of them. My only guess as to why is because it was the filmmakers, cast, those involved, and their friends and family making those comments.

Here is an incredibly derivative, poorly paced, badly edited, low budget, DV feature with not one good piece of dialogue. Not one well composed shot. Not one even halfway decent performance.

Had Jay Mohr actually played the lead role, it might've been somewhat better, but as he did not, we're left with amateur hour all the way.

As for the twist, it's on level with something I expect on cable. No I didn't see it coming, but it was hardly what I'd call earth shattering or worthy of even the top 1000 twists of all time.

The film is mediocrity epitomized.

This movie has a great concept, differentiating itself from other movies in the genre. Grace is known as a mythical drug, that is all but impossible to ever find. The capabilities of the drug are that of an increased level of consciousness within the human brain as never before. That is a great concept, and it is really interesting when Grace finally makes it's presence felt. The screen writing and direction of the film falls short however. The actors are amateurs, but I felt the main character delivered a worthy performance given the script to work with. The film obviously was made with a very low budget, but the idea is quite intriguing. This film still has potential if remade with a much larger budget, including some of the industry's highest talent of course. Overall 6 out of 10, not bad in any way, and the ending will add to the intrigue of the concept drug known as Grace.

My summary says it all. This has to be one of the WORST films I've ever seen. And calling it a film solely for the medium it was shot on, presumably. The acting is unbelievably bad, as though they're a group of acting students who haven't bothered going to a single class (and of course, come to the table with no raw talent). The director could have done as good a job had he not shown up on set. It wouldn't have changed the performances one iota, nor were the images anything impressive.

All in all, I'd say if you consider spending an hour and a half watching this piece of crap, perhaps you'd be better off taking a nap, going to the gym, anything but wasting your time here.

Interesting movie about a New York City drug dealer who comes upon a mythical drug 'grace'. The leading male and female actor and actress did a very nice job. In one scene a man is doing 'grace' for the first time. The main character is questioning him from the shadows and the lighting effect works well. Unfortunately, however, the scene drags on a lot longer than it should have. Also, while the leading male role was well played, the part for him was not very well written. He was so overly contemplative and sensitive that it seemed like he would have been better suited as a poet in the movie than a ruthless drug dealer. Also, the writer goes at such pains to shows the bodyguard's loyalty that the ending is not as big of a surprise as it could have been. The grace and the storm idea and the grace and wrath of God parallel was a good idea, but it could have been more developed. Despite being somewhat critical I do still have to say that it held my attention for the most part and so I would recommend it.