Devil's Path

About halfway in, I turned the settings on my surround sound speakers off for the dialogue. Without the weird and disjointed plot and script, the cinematography and music were atmospheric and tense. There were a number of scenes that were intense and claustrophobic, and coveyed a very real sense of unease, fear and suspicion.

Then I looked up the actual plot. And it was terrible. It really was a shame this movie's story brought the film down. The photography and lighting were pretty good, as was the accompanying soundtrack.

An okay little thriller that is well shot, contains some pretty decent acting, and an interesting - if not totally original - plot.

Essentially a man with severe PTSD sets off into a popular cruising area in an attempt to find out what happened to his brother. There, he meets an asthmatic player who may have had something to do with the brother's disappearance.

The movie loses steam the closer it gets to the conclusion, which requires more suspension of disbelief than I'm able to give it. But the before part is far more interesting and entertaining than the resolution. It's almost as if the writer ran out of ideas for what to do with these two men, and simply decided to abruptly end it. Either that, or entire scenes were lost.

Even so, there is still a lot to like about the movie. The cinematography is interesting, the actors are better than you might expect (and do justice to two characters who are generally unlikable), and the dialogue rises above the popcorn you're used to seeing in movies like this.

I've complained for a long time that movies with gay themes are often bad. That tend to cover the same territory over and over again (HIV, coming out, homophobia, etc). So it's nice to see a film that tries something a little different, even when it doesn't always succeed.

The action scenes after dark are so dark you can't tell who is going after whom. Might as well turn the screen off and guess what is going on by hearing just the soundtrack.

A well made, well acted movie about dirty little secrets and a whole lot more. Great thriller.

I wanted to like this movie. The overall plot and synopsis sounded good, and the use of a setting popular with M2M hookups and anonymity was a good device. I would not really call it an LGBT+ movie, as much as a thriller that uses an LGBT+ setup.

That is the part that worked. Where the movie falters is in the actual direction and really odd script writing. It dragged when it should have been moving fast and became clumsy when it should have been cautious. The script didn't help. It needed to remember it was a thriller, but instead became loaded with too much unrealistic dialogue, corny scenes, and (UGH!) monologues.

Also, about a third of the way through, you can predict much of the mystery. Just enough to make you feel like it needs to end already. I fast forwarded through many parts of the movie. The third act also technically showed the big flaws in the directing.

There was a few twists towards the end, but it just made me think too much about mental health issues rather than insight or sympathy.

In short it felt like a college film project that was filmed in a weekend. Grade C-