Roulette

I was lucky enough to be the first Australian to see this movie and I can easily say that it BLEW ME AWAY! (no pun intended ). Roulette is an extremely well written and very clever picture! Each individual story in the movie had twists and turns that I had not predicted. Then comes the end !!!!! There are few movies that I have seen that I am able to honestly say had me physically sitting on the edge of my seat, leaning forward, unblinking, completely engaged in the movie and Roulette achieved this. The cast and crew of this movie all put their best foot forward and created a movie that leaves you in an agonizing suspense. Brilliant.I have wasted so much time watching terrible Hollywood movies before that I wish to thank 'Roulette' for adding quality to 113 minutes of my life. It is THAT good!

Roulette is truly a great and very underrated film. It will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end and leave you in awe and have you thinking about it for days/weeks to come. I have not had a film captivate me and pull me in so much like this one did in a long, long time! The character's are all very well developed and it is interesting to see how all 3 character's lives intersected at a certain point and the results of what their interactions had on the overall story. This isn't really a fast paced film, it's more of a slow burning, deep thinking type of film, but anyone who admires a true piece of art will definitely find something to appreciate here. Erik Kristopher Myers is a great up and coming filmmaker and I can't wait to see what he does next.

I don't know who wrote that initial glowing review, but I blame them personally for the excruciatingly painful 17 minutes I suffered in watching this film. 17 minutes was as long as I could take the torture.

Poorly written, poorly directed, idiotically stilted dialogue recited by insanely talentless actors. It didn't help that it seems they worked hard to only cast annoying, over-acting actresses with screeching voices. Massively amateur, and not in a good way.

The plot is filled with every stereotypical relationship/scenario. Whiny women and angsty boy-men.

I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with the weird coloring... half the shots are a weird monochrome pinkish-red, others are some drab sepia with random pops of colored objects. It reminded me of those really unappealing color-separated photos of food in old 1950s magazines.

Avoid this movie at all costs!

What's wrong with this flick? Acting; writing; direction; everything you see and hear. What's right with this flick? After what feels like an eternity of pain for the viewer, it finally ends. What's wrong with the reviews? As I noted in my own previous reviews, there is a clustering of rave reviews which always means a pity party held by those involved in the travesty; in this case, the month of around November. Gang, if you're going to lie (or give into your delusions) then at least spread the wealth out over several months (and to some extent the guilty parties did this) to dampen suspicion. The bottom like: Listen to the negative reviews; you surely have something (ANYTHING) better to do with your precocious time. Maybe watch a dumpster fire if you can find one....

On the surface, "Roulette" sounds very intriguing: three people at the end of their ropes sit alone in a dark room playing Russian roulette, some half-heartedly, some with no fear of dying whatsoever. During the session, we flashback to what events got them to this room at this time in their lives. The flashbacks are even round-robined, which helps the film's pace.

Unfortunately this film has, what I believe to be, the worst cast assembled for an indie film in quite some time. I understand how limited the budget is for films such as this, but there are talented people available in even the smallest cities. The casting directors for this film had little to no experience and it shows. Of course, I ultimately blame the director, who should have either waited to find better actors, given better or more direction, or just pulled the plug.

Few of the actors cast in lead roles here had anything but background experience and that's painfully obvious as well, the worst case being Michelle Murad's Zoe whose line readings are either irritatingly dippy sing-song or shrill shrieking. NONE of the three protagonists are well cast and therefore range from unlikable to laughable. Ali Lukowski works her facial muscles so stridently in order to (I guess) relay her character's sexual repression that she makes Sunny an ideal caricature for SNL (Right to life Girl?).

All of it makes Roulette an extremely hard film to sit through and tolerate. In the end, if you're not careful, you might be the one who ends up pulling the trigger.