Alongside Night

Jeez Louise, where do I even start? Calling this movie a "train wreck" would be an insult to train wrecks. I doubt any train wreck could ever be as abominable as this movie is. Heck, I would rather be in a train wreck than watch this again. I've seen better acting in home movies (better production values, too). The dialogue is laughably bad. The pace is leaden. It's so torturously slow that it makes The Blair Witch Project look like a Road Runner cartoon. On paper, it sounds like a "so-bad-it's-fun" movie, but it's not. It's really not.

Imagine watching a grainy recording of paint drying, played in super slow motion, narrated by Gilbert Gottfried. Imagine further that you are being tickle tortured, having toothpicks stuck under your fingernails, and having teeth extracted without anesthesia all at the same time. Imagine further still that you are being force fed the contents of a septic tank while all this is happening.

If you can imagine all of this, then you have a pretty good idea of what watching this is like.

First of all, the production value is excellent, save for one scene towards the end, for what I imagine was quite a small budget. And I found the acting to be above your average Hollywood, not to mention an Indie film. Perhaps because of a number of experienced actors that are in it. No household names, other than Sorbo, but fine actors in their own right. I was especially pleased with the young leads, always difficult to find good ones.

The action runs quickly although not smoothly at all times. There are holes in the plot but the story seems secondary to me. Far from being tedious, the film brings forth ideas which are not in the mainstream and explains them fairly well. I found this quite refreshing if anyone can name a film which is as interesting in expressing a pro-government position please let me know.

To summarize: pros: good-looking film for a small Indie, I was very pleased with the acting, an interesting and decent exposition of fresh ideas, something the industry is desperate for. Cons: a fairly unexciting story line and a muddled ending. Watch if you have a curious mind. 8/10

One of the ten worst English speaking movies of all time. Strap a suspected terrorist in a chair to watch a loop of this movie and in between screams he/she will confess to John F. Kennedy's assassination or to being behind fluoridation of drinking water ... for the love of Allah, just please stop the torture. Alongside Night is a pure vanity project by the book's author J. Neil Schulman. There are Youtube videos by 12-year-old kids that have more professional production values than this movie. Heck, there are silent movies made 100 years ago that were more professionally produced. The book could have come to life in a captivating movie if Kevin Sorbo had been able to bring in the production team from his old Hercules TV series, and the script had been written and the movie directed by professionals who know how to capture and entertain an audience.

Alongside Night is a fast paced drama / action adventure with significant implications for our future. It's full of great actors and well directed. Instead of relying on special effects and chase scenes it has a well thought out plot structure. The characters are interesting and appealing. You really get invested in what is happening to them. It's based on a novel that came out in 1982, predicting the massive economic problems facing the world now and has been upgraded to fit in well with the present day, futurism that is coming true before our very eyes. I strongly suggest that you see this movie before reading the novel to avoid spoilers, but I read the book when it first came out and still found it entertaining, a damn good movie.

While I'm sure its target audience, those who are already familiar with the source material, will probably enjoy this movie, for those of us in the mainstream, the whole thing comes across as a poorly thought out political screed. There's unexplained jargon thrown around, massive plot holes (the economy has collapsed, yet Vegas is still full of green grass? One of the least hospitable environments for such?), and a general tedium. The whole thing is clearly aimed strictly at its believers, or maybe those involved were so close to the material that they couldn't see the problems. Sorbo is properly credited as a lead, not just a day or two of filming, but most of the acting is passable, at best. Apologies for the lack of details, but I saw this a few months ago, and the finer points have mercifully faded from memory.