Random Shooting in L.A.

A very powerful film. While some moments were stronger than others, it's a really good movie -- dark, provocative, disturbing, and also uplifting. The way they managed to shoot the whole film entirely from the home movie camera's POV--with no cut-aways--gave it a feeling of raw realism. It was a bit reminiscent of the Dogma films. You get the sense that the characters are real people, not actors. Speaking of real, a fight scene about half-way through the movie looked as strong and disturbing as any violent sequence I've seen on film. Cathryn de Prume is amazing as the Russian hooker, and her emotional transformation leading to the ending was moving and funny at the same time. I can't remember seeing anything quite like this film before.

I saw this at a film festival in Santa Monica. The rest of the audience seemed to like it a lot, but I wasn't into it until the last story. The acting was good for the most part, unfortunately the whole feel of the film was too rough for me. I was also turned off by one really violent beating scene, which was too brutal to be entertaining. On the plus side, because the last story was so good, it wasn't a total loss.