A Dangerous Place

I could only watch the first 15 minutes of this film before giving up. The story and acting is fine - the problem is pacing and cinematography. The dialog from actor and from scene to scene moves at lightning speed making it unwatchable. It seems the director was trying to squeeze a 2 hour film into 90 minutes ? I felt as if the films play speed had been increased !? Meanwhile the cinematography was very poor - too many shots too close to the actors faces.

It happens only rarely, very rarely I might add, that a movie turns out to be so utterly boring and uninteresting that I have to give up on it and turn it off. "A Dangerous Place", however, turned out to be one such movie.

The story, as far as I made it into the movie, is about a woman who apparently lost her husband in the World Trade Center tragedy, but he has come back as a ghost. The woman is not the mother to her child that she should be, and is more devoted to her work than her family. And a deadly outbreak of Tubercolosis runs rampant.

To me there was absolutely no coherent red thread in the storyline, and it seemed like it was a heap of mere random clips put together to attempt forming a movie. It just didn't really make much sense most of the time.

As for the acting in the movie, well I wouldn't exactly say that the performances were poor or bad, but they just weren't overly impressive either. None of the performances managed to leave a lasting impression on me. But I can't hardly say that any of the performances that I witnessed were helping the movie along in any great way either.

I think I made it about halfway into the movie, because I had to give up and find some other movie to watch out of sheer boredom and lack of interest in the storyline portrayed in "A Dangerous Place". And I can honestly say that I have no intention of attempting to finishing it either, it was just that devoid of appeal.

This is a pretty good movie. Not great, but exciting enough. There are plenty of scary moments, and of course the urgent tone and frenzied editing of the various news outlets. Weird lighting, strange angles and shaky cameras add to the mood in the scary situations.

And we are given many different possibilities about the cause of what's going on. But we always suspect there is one main reason. We just don't know the details.

But it's not all a tense thriller. There are sweet family moments, and even a role for faith, as the family's priest helps with honoring Will.

And there is room for occasional comedy, like that huge pile of what looks like a week's worth of celebrity fan mail, but is really eight months of regular mail.

Kristen Dalton does an okay job. Claire has to be strong, but she falls apart occasionally. She's no superwoman, which is fine. She isn't necessarily a person of faith, but she is open to the idea of relying on a higher power.

I could have done without all the blood, but I guess that's how you know people are sick.

It's worth seeing.

I'm no critic... just an average movie viewer.

However, after seeing this movie, I had to write this commentary to tell you my thoughts. I'll keep it simple.

Acting was below average. Directing/editing is disappointing.

I could see where they were going with the story and it had so much potential but it fell short in so many places. In some instances it was confusing and erratic.

And the ending... well... that didn't really make a lot of sense but I could see the intention.

Audio production is at times woeful and inconsistent throughout the entire movie. Levels and EQ (equalisation) were all over the place.

There were a few good moments in the movie that made me think there was some hope for it to get better... but they quickly disappeared.

Overall, poorly executed by both production and acting - could have been so much better... shame.

I'm sure there are better reviews about this movie but I had to pass on my thoughts...

You can find much better ways to spend 95 minutes - sitting through this movie is NOT one of them.

The story is simple:

1) company makes TB vaccination,

2) TB outbreak occurs,

3) company has monopoly on TB meds.

Throughout the whole movie, the filming was jerky. I think the longest continuous shot was about 5 seconds. I watched this with my brother (15) and even he thought it was a stupid plot and he had a headache from the quick movements. Says the boy who thought Chronicle was a GREAT movie and enjoys fast, jerky, war movies.

DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE...or if you do, be sure to stock up on motion sickness pills.