The Frontier

I just finished watching this, I gave it a 7 due to the great way they filmed this, you swear it's a film made and set in the 70's, the grainy look, the set, the music, everything even down to the 70's kinda storyline, cars and clothing, extremely well done, even at the end the music score sounds if it's from the 70's.

Nothing new as yeah everything has been sort of done, but the cast is solid, simple but effective story line, but a rare sort of film that fools you thinking its years old.

7 out of 10

And here is some text so IMDb will publish my short review.

I think this was actually a very good film! I wasn't expecting much, but it's one of those films that don't appear to have a promising plot at first, but then it grows on you through the good acting and the steadily increasing suspense!

I just love the way Laine evolves as a character, or rather how we as viewers change the way we see her as the movie goes on... Very fine piece of characterization!

Some crime thriller taking place in a run-down motel off some desert road doesn't sound like a big deal, but this IS a very good suspense thriller, with a lot of unexpected plot twists! It had me at the edge of my seat for most of the second half. It's not the setting or even the events themselves that make for a GREAT film, it's the way they get to us as viewers, and this film really got to me :)

So I'd recommend this film to all lovers of suspenseful, unexpected thrillers :D

The Plot.

Laine, a young woman on the run from the law, turns up at the Frontier, an isolated desert diner and motel.

She is offered a job by Luanne, the owner, and, hoping to lose herself in the obscurity of the place, accepts the job. But soon Laine realizes she has stumbled into an even bigger and more dangerous situation.

Firstly, i like the Twin Peaks look of the film. But it's very slow and the female lead is not a particularly good actress. She brings the movie down.

The dialog is second rate. It's hard to emulate Lynch because he's genuinely quirky and knows how to make it work. In fact, the more I watched this film, the more I felt it was just a Lynch rip off thank anything else.

Oren Shai knows his archetypes, and plays brilliantly with them in this film-literate, paperback movie, artfully constructed with a wonderfully enigmatic central performance by Jocelin Donahue, playing a role similar to Nic Cage in RED ROCK WEST. The comparison is one that kept popping up in my mind. Both titles suggest Westerns but are in reality dusty, Southwestern Noirs, Both have the lead stumbling into a criminal scheme and then creating their own. Similar, also, is Shai's film to John Dahl's follow-up Noir, THE LAST SEDUCTION, in which we follow the femme fatale, instead of the tragic male.

If made in the 90's, like the aforementioned pictures, I think this would be enjoying a wide-release right now. It clearly has the skill behind it. Shai is a beautiful stylist, creating the timeless palate of a decade never mentioned, but most likely the 70's, given the cars and wardrobe. However, the actors put their spin on movie stars of decades previous. There's Kelly Lynch doing her version of Gloria Swanson, Richard Harris doing his Errol Flynn, and Jim Beaver doing a Lee Marvin. Beaver stands out as the strongest.

As much as the film portrays a slice of Americana Pulp, there's something almost European about the execution. It bypasses the luridness of the genre, and instead focusing on the lead, Donahue; photographing her lovingly, magnetically, like a muse, with long contemplative zooms. She has never looked better. And although we never fully learn about her character, she brings her inherent likability to it. She can be the Margot Kidder of our generation.

Although it starts rather seriously, there is a streak of black humor laced throughout that begins to escalate, climaxing with a delirious shift by Kelly Lynch. I suggest watching with an audience to bring out the potential camp.

Oh, and it's shot on 16mm. What else do you want?

Whos says 1970s maxi skirts, wrinkly pantyhose and unkempt, brown hair can't be sexy! Jocelyn Donahue, as Laine definitely pulls off a convincing performance of a sweet girl in a dangerously wrong situation, who wriggles through perilous scrapes with the innocence of a lamb, though, as we soon find she is neither of the two. Though "The Frontier" has the appearance of a 70s TV Movie, with suitable, "barn-find" automobiles and even more antiquated TV sets(!) the action keeps one guessing (admittedly unsubtle), and the script never fails to spring surprises, right to the end. The medium budget drama has both the aura of a road movie and a Western, but in this Western you tend to have just the Bad and the Ugly. In this respect "The Frontier" reminded me of "The Hateful Eight" (2015). Both movies tend also to be pretty liberal in the mistreatment of women, but in taking sexual equality at face value all's fair in love and Hollywood. I think it is more a movie for the guys, thanks to the presence of Laine, doubtless prissily pretty, never showing too much to prove it. The character of Flyn the Englishman was pretty weak, thanks to his difficulty in mastering the tongue, but if you remember only the goofs of a movie it tends to be a "baddun" - right?. "The Frontier", thankfully does have one or two saving graces, e.g. that pass-the-parcel swag- bag of dollars, the ruthless internecine bumping off of adversaries and that all so understandable corruptibility of humans.