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I saw this film at the world premiere last night at the Toronto Film Festival. It was a crime drama told in the non-linear style made famous by Tarantino. What really made this movie stand out from like-themed movies, was it's setting in the Cayman Islands. The culture of the Caymans is evident in every shot, every frame, and it give an entirely fresh perspective on subjects we've visited before.

Frank E. Flowers does a fantastic job of keeping the story coherent as we alternate between two timelines, set four months apart. The acting is strong and the entire film has a distinctive atmosphere.

The crowd seemed to love it, but then again, the entire cast was present and the audience was quite excited (especially by Orlando Bloom). Still, a very good movie. It seemed like it may have been a little long, perhaps ten minutes or so, but that really came from trying to establish the Caymanian culture, so it's understandable.

I am glad to hear that this film will finally be released, albeit on DVD. I saw 'Haven' at the Toronto film festival and have been awaiting it's release ever since. I did think that the film was a bit choppy, which was mildly distracting, but that the overall ride was great. In following up his critically acclaimed short 'Swallow' with 'Haven', his feature film debut, Frankie Flowers proves that he is more than capable of writing and directing a full length film.

While it is a difficult task to jump back and forth in a timeline, from sub plot to sub plot, while keeping an audience interested; entertained; and able to follow, I believe that Flowers has done a splendid job despite sacrificing some of the continuity for stylistic shot making. Tarantino has tried, despite box office success, somewhat in vain in this regard for years. Movies such as Magnolia have come along and disappointed and perhaps the only film in recent years to truly excel in this style was Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's '21 grams'.

With strong performances from an ensemble cast of well known Hollywood stars and unknown local talent, 'Haven' is well acted from start to finish. Orlando Bloom leads the way with an excellent performance as the going nowhere fast 'shy', and proves that he can portray a modern day man between timepiece and fantasy blockbusters. Dare I say he would be better off, from an acting portfolio sense, taking on more of these roles.

I highly recommend 'Haven', especially in this age of over the top; special effects no plot movies. I hope that Flowers continues to be given opportunities to hone his craft and I look forward to his next piece.

The story is not exactly impressive but correct crafted.

The slick manner to tell the story represents the basic good point of film. Reasonable acting, good job of Orlando Bloom, interracial romance and some drops of Romeo and juliet, Cayeman stories and a ball of destinies .

Difficult to define it more than an ordinary thriller but the good intentions and part of nice work of director are good reasons for not define Haven as waste of time.

Indeed, significant part of story is reduced at sketches, well constructed or, more exactly, enough for a not bad work , offering to viewer kicks to reflection, in honest - precise way.

In short, decent film.

I saw the second screening of this film, at the Toronto Film Festival. It reminded me a little bit like the film "Traffic" with a hint of Quentin Tarantino. The movie threads together multiple story lines and shifts back and forth through time.

Bill Paxton has a great performance as a shady business man who escapes with this daughter to the Cayman Islands.

Orlando Bloom's character is the most endearing. I found I could relate to his character the most. Shy (Bloom) was the classic boy from the wrong side of the tracks, who is completely in love with the rich girl, Andrea (Zoe Saldana).

Zoe Saldana has a great performance as well. Her character goes from a sweet girl who makes a complete 180 turn to a druggie /(how to put this politically correct) very easy girl.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. Frank E. Flowers did a really great job with his debut. The story was really intriguing and the setting was beautiful. A really well done film.

First let me explain my rating-system. I consider a 5 a movie that's somewhat watchable, a 6 is already a good movie. I gave Haven a 3 because the soundtrack was good and the acting wasn't horrible. Now over to the bad stuff...

I wouldn't recommend this film to anyone. Usually in my reviews I try to say something like: 'this movie isn't recommended for people who don't like slow-developing plots' or 'it's not for people who want the plot wrapped up neatly in the end'. But I can honestly and objectively say this movie was just one of poor quality. The biggest problem is the plot itself. The storyline is multi-linear, characters are being followed and they're all supposed to be connected in one way or another through an event or multiple events. Examples of brilliant use of this method is seen in Amores Perros, 21 Grams, Crash and Magnolia. In these films the story lines have similar prominent themes and the characters are all connected physically. Every character adds more elements to the story until we have a complex web of story lines, constantly crossing paths and having effects on one another. I know this sounds confusing but watch Amores Perros and Crash and you'll know exactly what I mean. Haven makes one fruitless attempt after another to be clever until all we end up with is an unsorted mess of scenes thrown together in a wanna-be movie. That's the best way to describe Haven: it wants to be a lot of things but ends up being rubbish.

The thing that irritated me even more then the gimmick mentioned above was the chronologically scattered framework that was used. I feel like they realized the plot and characters of their attempted intelligent film were overly simple, and they tried to jazz it up with a chronologically scattered framework to fool people into thinking they're watching something clever. I heard the story was chronological at the premiere of the Toronto film festival and then they re-edited the whole film to create the flashbacks. That's not the way to write a story with a scrambled up chronology. You have to actually write the script like that (with chronology switching from the start of your story) or the storyline will be a mess. The storyline has to flow naturally, even if you use chronology like that. A prime example a brilliantly written script that uses the same technique is Memento. The technique used actually adds something to the suspense of the story.

Nope, don't waste your time on this. I usually only write IMDb reviews for films I like but this film was just too dreadful for words, I felt it was my duty to stop another human being from seeing it. I don't see why anyone should see this movie. It's certainly not to be entertained and I hardly think anyone would be enlightened after seeing a film like this.

3/10 and I'm being generous.