41

Full review on my blog max4movies: 41 is an independent science fiction movie about a student of philosophy, who discovers a trap door in a motel room that leads to the past. The premise is basic but interesting, and the movie is mostly well executed, with great cinematography and an atmospheric score. The performances are somewhat middling, but the main actor mostly does a decent job. The plot is overall thrilling and clever, however, the ending will throw some viewers off, due to a central plot hole. Still, the movie is efficiently made and demonstrates that science fiction can also deal with very down-to-earth issues.

Albeit a low cost production movie, the story is well played. Don't expect big expensive special effects or a new approach in quantum physics to time travel.

Just a simple, yet captivating story about a time traveller.

Movie starts off the usual way by presenting us the characters and then develops throughout the plot. So far so good, but in the middle of the movie things just kinda go slow, but then it picks up pace wonderfully until the end.

A time travel tale is a good start for any young director. The story was interesting and low on predictability.

The main character looked a little vacant at times, considering he found himself in varying degrees of stressful situations. But in the main, he was engaging.

Some of the dialogue was a little ropey and a few scenes had an air of awkwardness about them. I put this down to some below par screen writing and the odd inexperienced actor. The police scenes looked at times, like they belonged in a different movie. Far too hammy, and unnecessarily comedic.

The score was great and the movie does leave you thinking about the many possible paradoxes that the main character's actions inspire.

But as with most time-travel movies, don't think too hard about it, just focus on the bigger message. Which, at least is something that you are left with come the end.

This is a curiosity. I like it. It's entertaining, and sufficiently engaging to keep watching through to the end. I don't have any specific reason to doubt the skills of anyone involved. I'd like to see more features from everyone involved.

Yet whether we're talking about Heath Brown's score, the editing or production of writer-director Glenn Triggs, or the performances drawn out of the cast, almost everything in '41' is unremarkable. I don't mean bad - it's absolutely not bad - just unremarkable. Almost nothing here is especially noteworthy; nothing leaps out as a defining element. I watch it and think to myself, "That was good!" - then move on with my day, end of story.

I did say "almost"; there are a couple scenes in the screenplay that stick out. For one thing, halfway through we get a dialogue in which protagonist Aidan joins a group of high-minded middle-aged men philosophizing about this and that, and he approaches them with questions about the time travel quandary he has stumbled into. One of these conversationalists is especially cynical, and as Aidan defines the hypothetical terms of time travel, that naysayer casts aspersions on the notions being put forth. In short: A character within the film is critiquing the plot of the film. I couldn't help but laugh; this was clever.

Second, in the last quarter of the feature, as Aidan seeks resolution to the issues at hand, he makes use of the time travel he has discovered in a way I certainly didn't anticipate. From very early on in '41' I thought I knew exactly where the plot was going to end up - and I was wrong. Kudos, Mr. Triggs; you got me.

And yet for all that the ultimate ending, the very last few minutes, aren't satisfying. I don't find this conclusion to the story convincing, as though there's a hole somewhere in the twisted weave of the time travel, and its tangled ramifications, that I can't quite place my finger on. Maybe that's just me. But it does mirror, in its own way, the vast majority of these 80 minutes that is just simply flat in tone, unprovocative in its build, and overall mystifying.

Again, '41' certainly isn't bad. I do like it; I think it's worth watching, if not necessarily going out of one's way to find. I just feel so much of it to be weirdly undistinguished, however well done it may be.

This movie has an admiring audience, and apparently I'm just not part of it. I'll say this much though, my curiosity is piqued by the bizarre duality of being largely unexceptional, yet still solidly crafted. It may be a subjectively wrong way of keeping my attention, but it was kept nonetheless. Well played, '41' - I think?

Delving into this area of extremely low budget time travel sci-fi gets with it the inevitable comparison to 2004 film "Primer" which was a masterwork of excruciatingly hard sci-fi.

Here, the mechanisms are largely unimportant, even though there is an entire scene devoted to basically expo-dumping how it works in the form of hypotheticals and quizzing of a small group of four philosophers and scientists.

Some guy named Aidan is driving in his car with his ex-girlfriend when suddenly someone jumps in front of the car while he's driving at night and it crashes, killing her and hospitalizing him. He meets a seemingly loony old man in the hospital who tells him to go to a motel and go to room 41 and crawl in a hole in the bathroom floor. Earlier in the film, someone who looked exactly like him told him not to go to that motel. So naturally he goes in.

From there he learns that going through the hole and emerging brings him about 12 hours into the past. From there, he tries to change what happened with his ex-girlfriend and the like.

Where the film falters, for me at least, is that it seems to not be able to decide upon what type of "time travel paradox" to go with. The presence of himself earlier in the film and the revelation about the cause of the crash would seem to imply a predestination paradox where he is in a situation where time is fixed, and any attempt he makes to change the past has already been done.

But then at the same time, other mutually incompatible paradoxes are toyed with as well, including a "multiple universes branching off" and some others. Toying with many different ideas for time travel would be something interesting to see if done well; the problem is it is not done well here. In some cases we don't even know what is happening and the determining factor as to whether Aidan is able to change something in the past amounts to "Whatever the script feels like".

As well, it drags in several places, and takes an awful long time to get to a really intriguing "Wow" moment, by which time the film was essentially over with barely 10 minutes left. Whether or not the extra focus or attention to detail would've helped or hindered the film I probably wouldn't be able to say, but for what it is, it was a neat enough film.