Ataque a Bushwick

The Steadicam work alone is enough to want to watch this film. The way it is shot and the content is amazing. I had no expectations going into this and was blown away.

As for the story, if you think something like this is purely fiction, history says different.

Two people get stuck in a city-wide gun fight.

The camera trails about six feet behind the main characters as they scamper from one besieged house to another. The action is pretty intense! Passers by and pedestrians in the back ground get gunned down or embroiled in their own personal dramas.

This is not an expensive film and its lack of budget is both its strength and weakness. It has a gritty feel to it and there is no big Hollywood star waiting to rip his shirt off and everything has a degree of realism about it.

But some of the action scenes do suffer from a lack of funds. Soldiers wait patently for stuntmen to do their thing before spurring into action, or beat at invisible flames that the CGI team didn't get time to add.

This feels very much like a computer game. There is not a whole lot for the characters to do except run and dodge and shoot, but the film is kept under the magic 90 minute mark so that was ok.

They try to add some meat to the characters in a couple of quite dull dialogue scenes that didn't really work. I only know the characters from their backsides so I only need to know them about as intimately as I know third storm trooper from the right.

The final sequence falls apart a bit as the sets are just too small for the extras to comfortably fight over.

This is a great, cheap little run-and-gun action movie. Quite gritty and thrilling.

If "Bushwick" had been shot in a traditional way, I would have given it 6 stars. The story - a survival tale - has been done many times before, and is nothing to write home about.

The use of steady cam is, however. 'Bushwick' is one long continuous shot, where you don't notice the cuts (much like 'Birdman'). You are taken right into the action. There's no shakycam, no quick editing, just a camera constantly hovering beside, in front of and in the back of the action. How refreshing.

I wish that more movies were shot like this.

This was maybe one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen. There are a hundred reasons why it wouldn't work but I think you're not supposed to get to hung up on that. The acting was bad all around.

That all being said, it was pretty darn suspenseful! It kept my attention from beginning to end. The style reminded me of Cloverfield which I loved.

It's definitely worth a watch but try and take it for a quick action movie and don't get to bogged down with the details.

Like others, I heard about the film because Aesop Rock posted on Facebook saying he was doing the score. So I wasn't expecting much beyond a cool soundtrack...

From the first scene, it's apparent that winning an Oscar isn't the top priority. The dialogue isn't fluent and the acting is stunted, and we're thrown in with the action almost right away: streets are burning, we don't know why, let's get the hell out of here. The top priority, it seems, is creating a video game-like war-torn corner of NYC through which the protagonists must try and survive. And it does this well.

It only took a few minutes for me to start honestly enjoying it. The main driving force is the perspective: a single hand-held camera doing long continuous takes, so the whole movie, having been edited to cut different takes seamlessly together, runs like an entire 90 minute one-shot. It makes you feel as if you're there with them, experiencing the action unfold, no tea break, and the ridiculous plot and forced acting combine to make it feel like you've stepped directly into a '90s B-movie or a shoot'em up arcade game set in Brooklyn. It's really pretty cool, and almost makes me think that the silly plot and acting were intentional. Maybe, maybe not.

If you're looking for a political thriller, a thinking man's action movie, cool martial arts/fight scenes, or any amount of emotional realism, look elsewhere. But if you're happy with a mindless yet oddly engrossing bang bang movie, this might be fun.