One Way

Ngl, MGK, has earned my respect as an actor in this film. He literally held his own alongside icons Kevin Bacon and Travis Fimmel. For that matter, all casting and performances were convincing and excellent, especially Storm Reid and Luis Da Silva Jr., with only Drea de Matteo being too cliched and unconvincing as the gang leader.

Even the score for a low budget B film was on point. The cinematography however, had some issues, specifically being too dark in most of the bus scenes, and the garbled out of focus and shaky cam shots. Although a creative conceptual story with some decent twists, the writing suffered some plot and technical issues, and had too much filler for the little substance to effectively fill in the slowly paced 95 min runtime. The story had decent continuity, but also had some convoluted scenes and dialog. The ending was confusing; was it trying to be smart, or was it just convoluted. Even the constant conversations with Freddy's "conscience(?)" felt amateurish and out of place, and the cheesy directing and slow-mo and blurred shots got annoying pretty quick.

This film needed more dramatic and suspenseful content and/or a shorter runtime. All the filler added in just dragged out the film and should've been edited out, and perhaps add more needed character background and development. It's too bad this film has so many rookie-filmmaker mistakes, because with the awesome casting and performances and great conceptual story, it easily had the potential to be a great thriller. Still, a well deserved 6/10 from me for Baker's impressive performance next to two great actors.

Lets start off by stating the obvious -- clearly Andrew Baird has found a way to avoid the sales agents pretending to be film makers curse and has created ACTUAL films. Now they are flawed "Zone414" and now "One Way" but at least they are competent films! MGK was great in The Dirt and Verve with Franco so im not sure why everyone is shocked that he can act -- I'm not sure what to make of reviewers anymore there people who tell you that you cant rate a film higher than a 3 because thats what they KNOW and then there are those rating it a 10 because people gave it a "1" so I believe in general if a film is technically sound -- has a decent story -- is acted well then we should start with a 5 -- the rest is how it made you feel -- was it original and was it memorable...on those factors I grade 1 for memorable -- The images of the bus and some of the characters sticks with you once the film is done and thats the sign of a good film. So not getting into the spoilers of this movie but its a good watch --

I was at first reluctant to the idea of watching this thriller. The topic sounded so lousy and predictable that I did not feel it at all. But a friend of mine told me to try it, because it was worth...Actually the main character, a petty thug, junkie on the run, had nothing to excit me that much...Not my cup of tea. But to please my friend, I decided to risk ninety six minutes of my precious time on this movie. And I finally did not regret it at all. You have a gorgeous female kingpin, as Kate Winslet in TRIPLE 9, who is absolutely surprising - but I know that the female badass characters is the new fashion. The directing is very professional, well monitored, the acting OK too and Kevin Bacon is also excellent in an unusual role. Not a glorious one. And the ending very unpredictable too. So, to summarize, I was damn wrong at first sight, when reading the scheme of this story. Damn wrong, my instinct, for once, failed.

The good: they tried to make something exciting and thrilling, so I give them credits for trying, but in the end they utterly failed at making a thrilling crime story.

The bad: the story. The story is just not credible and kinda tedious, however much they have tried to make it look thrilling, the story is an empty shell.

How long can I stay interested in a character travelling on a bus? ONLY if the leading actor had been a terrific actor, this movie could have had some merit, but now it has none.

Kevin Bacon on the other hand IS a great actor and he does perform well (as usual) but he cant save this movie.

The story: a criminal has fled on a bus and now other criminals are chasing him. Lots of talk talk talk, little to none thrilling action.

This is a waste of star power. Kevin Bacon and Travis Kimmel can't pull off a stunt that would make the film a little likeable.

The storyline has all the makings of compelling drama centering on the relationship between estranged son and his father, and between an estranged husband and his wife and daughter. It simply lacks the gravitas to make it work. After a while, it becomes rather formulaic.

The idea of setting it on a moving bus has been done before. Remember 1994's Speed starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves? That is an example of a thriller that keeps the viewer's rapt attention all the way. With that as the standard, this film really falls short of expectations; the opportunity for a good film is squandered.