Fateful Findings

If you review this as a film- it's acting, it's dialogue, it's plot and it's cinematography- Neil Breen's movies resemble Wiseau's 'The Room'. Everything is so amateur and leaves the viewer questioning the director's sanity due to how he could see this as a complete movie.

Neil fully resembles Tommy; both are under the illusion that their movies are masterpieces due to the fame garnered when in reality they're just well known due to their odd existence. Neil is also the main character of his films, in this case, Fateful Findings, further supporting the argument that he's just gone a little bit crazy because of his midlife crisis .

If you expect a comprehensible movie, you're looking in the wrong place. If, however, you're looking for something to laugh at with a few friends, this is a great movie to watch. Honestly, I enjoyed it; Fateful Findings is so unaware of what it truly is, making it a thoroughly hilarious experience. Now, I am being a little vague with what this movie is about and that's because it feels like a soap opera- there really isn't a plot, just 'social' interaction. So many things happen at the same time- Neil's character Dylan is hacking the government, then a friend of his is murdered. he also spills his coffee in one of the most exaggerated, immersion breaking, attempts to act I have ever seen.

If you want a film for cheap gags- 10/10

If you want a real film- 2/10

Awful movies exist everywhere. Each one is released under different circumstances. Some are produced to intentionally be bad, while other times they just come across bad, but never wanted to be interpreted that way. The ones that are purposefully made to be horrible are made by filmmakers and studios who are just looking to make a cheap cash-in no matter how terrible the end result is. The best example many people might think of, that comes close to those descriptions would be either The Asylum or Uwe Boll. And then there are people like Tommy Wiseau or the man who made this movie, Neil Breen. It may be hard to believe but these two guys have a lot in common when it comes to how much they think they are a gift to the world. Both have a never ending ego that propels them to continue making their movies no matter what others say. They truly think their work is a high art that is at the same level as many of the other critically acclaimed films that have been released. Or so they think. As bad as this is, it is worth it.

Crediting himself to almost every single film crew position available, Neil Breen has taken on more roles than other thespian in existence. This is also probably why his film makes practically no sense. Neil Breen plays Dylan, a man who once found the love of his life before he hit his teens. Together, he and his then love Leah (Jennifer Autry) discover a magic token. Skip decades later and Dylan still holds this thing dear to him. Even after getting into a serious car accident. His current girlfriend Emily (Klara Landrat) is a struggling drug addict and a neighboring family is having their own strained relationships next door. Jim (David Silva) and Amy (Victoria Vivieros) have differing motives. Amy wants to relax because her job is hard and Jim wants to fornicate, mostly because he's always drunk. Plus Amy's stepdaughter Aly (Danielle Andrade) has to deal with their bickering. All the while Dylan has found a way of hacking into corporate systems that contain secrets and suffering from paranormal headaches.

Everything is about as fragmented as it gets. The writing is like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work. What Breen did here was try to make a movie that have every single genre in its story. As a result, the play out is generic and feels alien. There are several unfinished subplots mainly because nothing is done with them to begin with. Throughout the running time there's a character in black that goes around walking from place to place and it is never revealed who they are, what they want, what they represent, etc. The subplots themselves don't exactly fit together either in any smooth way. The Jim and Amy couple argue to no end, but have no impact on Dylan or Emily in development. So why bother including them? Also the stepdaughter has a sequence where she waltzes into Dylan's house naked to arouse him, only to be sent away by Dylan. And the significance of this scene was? If it's not going to go anywhere, why include it in the script? Breen's storytelling is like a maze.

Later on Dylan meets Leah again all grown up but for the most contrived reason, being that one had written in a notebook way back and held onto it for years. Really? Let's not forget the acting from the cast or the dialog to boot. Wow is this treasure trove of people who are not invested in the project they are making. Everyone from the top down can't deliver a line in any form that sounds natural or believable. What probably aided the deliveries to be so bad was due to how bad the lines are written. Some conversations don't even relate to one another, making the association incoherent. There are only a few redeeming qualities to this horrendous film. Of the cast, the only actor who stands out is Neil Breen and not because he's the best actor. Far from it. What makes his performance so amazing is because of how he has control over this whole thing, stars in it and can't even be a leading man. No emotion is put into his lines; everything is monotone. And this guy thinks he is making mainstream movies? What a laugh.

And that's by far the strongest highlight. It is because of Breen's emotionally void showing is what makes this viewing experience so funny. The main genre this film takes place in is a fantasy, science fiction thriller. Yet comes off like a comedy because of Breen. And this isn't his only stinker. Breen made two other films before this and basically gave the same kind of product. The two films were Double Down (2005) and I Am Here...Now (2009). The next best thing to Breen's acting is the cinematography handled by John Mastrogiacomo. Mastrogiacomo also has one other credit, which was to Breen's I Am Here...Now (2009). For what it's worth Mastrogiacomo gets some pretty background shots of the desert. Much of that is clear and vivid in its display. Interior shots are mostly okay but could use some improvement. The music was also adequate but that's probably because the music was just stock audio. There's no way Breen was a music director like he so proudly credits himself at the end. Yeah OK.

Recommendation wise, if you don't like indie or amateur films in general stay away. But if you're interested in seeing how unbelievable a guy like Neil Breen can be, now's the time. The camera-work and music might be okay, but don't expect anything else to tell an understandable story whatsoever. The actors don't even know what they're doing in it.

Fateful findings provides some truly revolutionary techniques in terms of animation and voice acting. I honestly thought this was live-action at first! It's director, Adum, is a pure genius. possibly my favorite video game since shrek on the gamecube. Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer.

I mean it, this is hands down the worst movie that I've ever seen in my entire life. For every bad movie I've ever seen, at least I could follow their storylines and there was some inkling of competence put into them. This movie doesn't even feel presentable, especially given the fact that it was released at a film festival. Although regarded as a "so bad it's good" flick, I do not feel that way as this film is so frustrating to sit through.

I don't even know how to describe the storyline as the movie jumps around from one plot point to the next, and not even in a coherent way. At first it seems to be about a boy named Dylan who develops these mystical powers from some black cube and soon uses them to hack into government databases as an adult, but then it constantly shifts between Dylan's friends subplots about these stupid marital dilemmas, Dylan's girlfriend's drug addiction, and even these disjointed misadventures with his childhood friend. The movie doesn't even really develop many plot points; the drug addiction plot point is barely looked upon, a teenage girl having a crush on Dylan is never bought up, and when Dylan's friend Amy shoots her husband Jim, we never see them ever again. Hell, even whenever Dylan goes back to hacking the government, I always forget it all happened, further proving how disjointed and confusing the "narrative" really is.

Adding on to that, the acting is incredibly wooden, and even saying that is an understatement. I guess the film's director could only use his friends for this, but couldn't he have at least tried to make them believable? When they're not failing to rise above being robotic, they either yell at the top of their lungs, or speak at such a monotone level that it's enough to make you fall asleep. However, the worst performance comes from the movie's creator Neil Breen, who plays Dylan himself, and does it so poorly that it's depressing to watch. At least Tommy Wise is so oddball ridiculous to look at and watch that his atrocious acting is delightful to sit through. Neil Breen doesn't rise above being blander than rice cakes and having less emotion than Bella from Twilight. When the best performance comes from a doctor at a meeting, there's a problem.

In terms of other aspects, I guess the cinematography and music are ok, but they reuse the same track over and over again, there are many long shots that don't even have much of a purpose to be there, and the effects are so obvious that even Birdemic had better effects. Oh, and there are a few times when the movie uses a green screen....not even gonna bother stating how obvious it is. I know this was made low budget, but if you can't even make your green screen look good, what's even the point?

To sum it all up....sigh.....no, I'm done. I'm done with this movie, I will never look back at it for the rest of my life. The story is incoherent, the editing is a mess, the characters are blank slates, the acting is worse than any Razzie Award winners, the cinematography and effects are at amateur level, and just everything about it is so poorly done that it's not even funny, it's just sad. If you find this movie ironically funny, good for you, but you will never hear me laughing at this movie, or even watching it anymore because it's that incomprehensible. Honestly, it would be better if you just slammed your head against a wall for 90 minutes instead of watching this, because at least then you'll leave more of an impact on that wall than Fateful Findings ever left on the history of cinema.

Fateful Findings in a transmission from the universe of Breem Prime.

Language has evolved in a completely different direction. Characters speak abstractly in bold cryptic announcements, a strange tribal caveman speak. And even the film narrative is in a less evolved. Fateful Findings is a melodrama from a third world country inexplicably out of the Las Vegas desert.

The mystical new-age narrative has an almost primal, indigenous quality. A hacker shaman struggles to tell the "real" truth while always fighting off incredibly beautiful women. He's vaguely mystical himself, an inexplicably successful author and computer hacker who works on a series of turned-off laptops, frequently flipping them and spilling coffee on them in some sort of ritual. Breen also goes to see two psychiatrists, who pretty much tell him he's great and that his decisions are awesome.

The main trio of women are so ridiculously hot the only reaction one could have that it must be an alternate universe. The depressed eastern European wife Emily has a quiet pathos. The friend's blonde wife is stunning but struggles with the dialogue. The friend's teenage daughter, a truly desperate girl. And lastly, the "love of his life", the skinny blonde doctor girl, is also apparently much younger than him despite being older in the childhood flashback. Her main role is to stand there mortified while a very smooth looking looking older man plants sensitive kisses on her lips and cheeks (and get tied up in a van).

At hundred minutes, it rough, took me a few days to get through. I did find, after I got used to the caveman speak dialogue, that it was a sort of sad movie about fulfilling one's potential, failed marriages, true love and personal integrity. Or some kind of alien alien approximation of them.

It's not without it's cryptic appeal, there are a few real laughs and bizarre uses of camera, some baffling edits. A lot of bad movie detail. But it's also kind of a bummer at times.

The climax is a truly bizarre product of a disturbed imagination. But, also kind of satisfying. I almost wish more movies ended that way. Fateful Findings is a dreamlike, new-age look at air conditioned suburban angst of middle aged men and hot trophy wives.