0.45

Rich characters! Each character had a life a back story that I got to know enough of about. Usually I'm annoyed by narrative, it takes me out of the movie, but they weren't distracting at all. They were funny and smart and it was a creative way to get insight about the character instead of 'telling' dialog, which can get tedious. Love watching little films with a lot of everything: raw grit, action and heart. Milla was great, never seen her that emotional and focused. This was a 3-d performance for her. Read Gary Lenon's credits- good stuff for a directorial debut. He made efficient choices that tell the story. It's hard to do that the first time around. Didn't know Aisha Tyler was in it, another pleasant surprise. Her performance was subtle. The cast was authentic Big Al owned the role! I really liked this one.

While I don't think this is anywhere near the best movie I have ever seen, I think that the character development in the roles played by Milla Jovovich, Angus MacFayden and Sarah Strange were outstanding. Without these performances, the movie would have been predictable and hum-drum. The ancillary commentaries from the two elderly women were also very humorous and added to the movie nicely. I have seen almost everything Milla Jovovich has done (shame on me), and besides "The Messenger", I would rate this as one of her better roles. In fairness, I must say that her role is only strong because of the development of the other main characters. Definitely worth the rental fee!

This movie although not without it's merits struggles with identity-issues, at times it appears to be a dark comedy, others a serious drama and occasionally a thriller and it goes back and forth like that in tone without much rhyme or reason.

There is also a bundle of (fake) interviews intertwined between the scenes with some of the characters (and some family members to them) talking about each other in various aspects (the movie starts off by Milla Jovovich's character talking about how big Angus McFayden's character is in his pants in great detail).

It does have some very good scenes separately (as well as some very bad ones) but together they don't always flow that well together, and one struggles to 'like' any of the characters and when you start to 'like' someone it's just because there's another character who's seemingly worse than them not that they are particularly likable or anything.

But yeah overall, if you're a massive Milla Jovovich or Angus McFayden fan I suppose you might like it, Stephen Dorff who was the in-ital drawing point of mine to the movie has about 25 minutes of screen-time (possibly less) and it's not one of his better performances albeit just like the movie not completely terrible.

Well, that was a waste of 101 minutes. I never would have known that .45 existed, if not for the presence of Milla Jovovich. That ignorance of this movie, probably would have been to my overall advantage. It's safe to say that I am not a fan. 

.45 is basically an R-rated Lifetime Movie of the Week. The story is a messy mix of domestic violence, crime, revenge, double-crosses, and general pointlessness. I was massively disinterested within the first ten minutes, but I forced myself to watch all of it, because of my misguided aversion to not finishing a movie (unless I absolutely must, ex. Darkness). No one came out of this one looking good, even the pretty Ms. Jovovich. I'm struggling to think of a single redeeming quality...nope. I'm drawing a blank. Even if you're a die-hard fan of Milla, I still could not recommend this. She does have talent, but none of it is on display, here. It's been a few months since I've seen a movie that I enjoyed this little.

Based on other user's comments, the raw emotion and grit present throughout this film might be too much for some, but for me it added an entirely new dimension to the story that really helped draw me into the harsh reality that these characters live in.

I was truly impressed with Milla's performance as "Kate" and I was pleasantly surprised to see her outside of a movie laden with kung-fu, guns and monsters and instead see her in a wonderfully directed and extremely well written film.

While I've only seen Angus Macfadyen on screen a handful of times, he completely blew me away as "Big Al". He plays one of the most powerful, controlling and abusive characters I've ever seen on screen, yet he's still very much human.

There's something about Gary Lennon's writing that really helps you understand these characters and the reality they live in, no matter how dysfunctional and messed up they may be.

Overall, .45 is an amazing debut for writer/director Gary Lennon, full of brilliant acting and an enthralling story. Highly recommended!