As soon as the starting credits rolled and I saw Keith Sutliff's name in almost every line, I knew I was in trouble. Actor, producer, writer, director, production manager, editor, location manager, casting director, second unit director, assistant director, production designer, art director, casting department, art researcher, production controller, production coordinator and *whew* finally set decorator Keith Sutliff bit off waaaay more than he can chew. I mean seriously?
Look, I get this is a low budget indie film and Kieth is a amateur filmmaker, but had he gone to a good film school, lesson #1 is to spread the talent. There are seasoned filmmakers out there that can't wear more than 3-4 hats, but throwing your name in all these roles is a recipe for disaster. This film is worse than any other C-grade film I've seen.
The only surprisingly redeeming quality this film had was the score. It was great in building tension to something.. that never happened. Luckily Keith Sutliff didn't do the score.
Everything else about this film was a flop. I don't think I have ever seen any film with such long, dragged out, dumb, irrelevant and useless scenes AND dialogue. What was the point of the girlfriends? Who cares about the trip to Vegas? etc... A 5th grader could've written a much better screenplay. There were more plot issues and holes than in Swiss cheese. Every time one of the leads said "shut up" to the other guys for rambling, I had already said it at least 5 times!
The pacing was atrocious. The 114 min length of this film felt like 5+ hours. This film needed to be edited/cut down to a short film 15-25 min long. Keith however did do a decent job with the some of the camera directing, although leaving a camera on a tripod in that coffee table room doesn't need much skill. But he really failed in directing his stale, balding and boring cast.
Then the current 5 fake/paid reviews even mentioning any comparison to Reservoir Dogs is an insult to that film and a huge insult to Quentin Tarantino, beyond forgiveness. I'm guessing that Keith Sutliff is simply trying to add credits to his resume, but had he stuck to only directing and maybe acting in this film, and subbed out the rest to more experienced crew, this film would have had a better showing - which is far more important than resume credits towards a flop film. I give him 1 star for his efforts, and another for the only redeeming quality, the score, which was very impressive and better than some B-grade films I've seen lately. Thus it's an honest and generous 2/10 from me.
