The Devil's in the Details

Terribly mixed performances...veteran actors allow neophyte protagonist to live long enough to kill any interest here. Glaring differences between portrayal skills. Non-stop panning camera shot in warehouse dungeon becomes wearying, script simply contrived, no real conversation or exchanges, just uttered lines. Blooper city. Not even laughable. This movie makes good actors Emilio Rivera and Ray Liotta look bad, and after an hour of viewing this disaster it's downright embarrassing, like watching a champion boxer take a dive. I had to turn it off. I don't care what the ending is. You're a better man than me if you finish watching this one.

The Devil's In The Details is an independent action/thriller that has some really good parts. One of my favorites is Ray Liotta. I have been a fan of his since his Goodfellas days and I have seen pretty much everything he's been in since. So it was nice to see him in this.

Liotta plays a military psychiatrist who is seeing Thomas Conrad (played by Joel Mathews) who is suffering from PTSD. So Conrad gets in an accident with this guy and all seems okay. But then the drama gets cranked up to eleven and all hell breaks loose.

Conrad is forced to get members of his family who work in law enforcement to help out a drug cartel. The plot gets a little convoluted but director Waymon Boone keeps the film moving forward at a nice clip. He does a good job of building tension and had a vision for this film that really came out in the finished product.

The story jumps around a bit with some flashbacks so you need to pay attention. But the pace of the film helps build tension and has you anticipating the next plot point.

As I have said this is an independent film so it didn't have a large budget. However, the cast and crew do a lot with what they have. I really liked this film and not just because of Ray Liotta. Overall, it was a good action/thriller with some nice plot twists and solid performances.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Since returning from a tour of duty, soldier Thomas Conrad (Joel Mathews) has had problems with drugs and struggling with demons, and has been sent to Dr. Robert Michaels (Ray Liotta) for assessment. He ends up regaling a story about a fender bender with a Mexican man, Bill Duffy (Emilio Rivera) which lead to him being forced to talk his father, his sister and a rival drug cartel into going along with a plan engineered by the ruthless Duffy.

I never got into it myself, but it seems the popular show 24 has spawned a lot of amateurish, tiresome wannabe imitations, that try and be all hip and cool with constant displays of the time at the bottom of the screen and telling the story in reverse, that are spoiling the enjoyment of a lot of modern film. The Devil's in the Details would be one such example, really just a total mess of a film that had potential in the script, but just made a total jumble of everything.

The cast try and make the best of the material, with Mathews giving it all an energy and gusto that it really doesn't deserve, and a unfazed Liotta all grey, and as dynamic and forceful as ever, but it all amounts to nothing, a totally forgettable, disposable nothing. **

I probably couldn't find enough adjectives to express how awful this film is, one of the worst I've ever seen. Filled with torture and sadism, as well as incredibly muddled plot elements and flashbacks, I would say it's an insult to anyone's intelligence.

Joel Mathews portrays Thomas Conrad, a post traumatic stress disorder patient, being seen by Dr. Robert Michaels (Ray Liotta), a military psychiatrist. After a minor fender bender with a man named Bill (Emilio Rivera), Thomas is told no harm done, and invited to a local bar for a drink.

The next thing he knows he's tied to the ceiling and being tortured by Bill and his cohorts, who let him hear on the cell that his wife and daughter have been kidnapped and held hostage. Unless Thomas can get his father (a judge), his sister (a cop), and his brother (a border patrol officer) to cooperate in a crazy scheme involving robbing a dangerous Mexican drug cartel, they'll all be killed.

Pretty much the entire movie is Thomas being tortured as he tries to convince his family to cooperate with his captors. By the time the "big" surprise ending comes, I couldn't have cared less and felt I need to take a shower to get this drek off of me.

What a waste of time to watch this terrible movie. It would really make you sick. I watched this on the Netflix, but after this experience I will really hesitate to watch anything on Netflix. Never ever should anybody anytime anymore allow Waymon Boone to direct a movie in his lifetime. It's a huge mess, chaotic and nothing makes sense. The characters are idiotic and looks like idiots, acting dumb and nothing is believable. Bad acting with irritating music. The story is just simple awkward, I felt like I'm in the twilight zone. Very disappointing experience!So much booboo is coming out from Hollywood. What a waste of time to watch this terrible movie. It would really make you sick. I watched this on the Netflix, but after this experience I will really hesitate to watch anything on Netflix. Never ever should anybody anytime anymore allow Waymon Boone to direct a movie in his lifetime. It's a huge mess, chaotic and nothing makes sense. The characters are idiotic and looks like idiots, acting dumb and nothing is believable. Bad acting with irritating music. The story is just simple awkward, I felt like I'm in the twilight zone. Very disappointing experience!So much booboo is coming out from Hollywood.