Echoes of War

I challenge anyone to sit and watch this movie in its entirety. The writers of this material must have been really really high when writing this. And the people who funded this must have been even higher. The people behind this couldn't have made this any more boring if they had tried. Stupidity begets stupidity.

I picked up this movie really cheap ($1.25) from a dollar store in my neighbourhood, since I quite often like to look at obscure movies since there are some real gems hidden out there. However, it didn't take long into watching it to determine that this was one movie that deserves to be unknown. Now, unlike some of the other user commenters here, I didn't find the acting to be particularly bad - nothing exceptional, but it was acceptable. And for what had to be a REALLY low budget, the filmmakers managed to stretch out every penny that they had (though I will admit that the movie isn't exactly lavish). But there is one big problem with the movie that sinks it, and that it is *painfully* slow and almost totally uneventful. Scene after scene goes by where *nothing* of real significance happens. You have to wait until 85% of the movie has gone by before things start really cooking, and then it's dealt with in just a manner of minutes. In the end, the movie seems to have no point at all, unless it was to be a nice tax write-off for the investors.

If you see one film this year, make sure it's NOT this one...unless you're in need of some shut-eye. In fact, if you see dozens of films this year, your time would best be spent doing anything else than watching this dreadful piece of garbage. Holy crap, the fellas who made this are clueless when it comes to storytelling.

Dull and excruciatingly slow doesn't even begin to describe this regurgitated Hatfield & McCoy-type story. There's no tension or real drama, the plot is as bland as unseasoned potatoes, the acting is nothing to write home about, the music is downright annoying, the photography is, well...meh, The whole stinking thing is plain awful. As a matter of fact, to call this awful is actually an insult to awful films.

Rating this 2 stars out of 10.

This was torture to sit through. To call this piece tedious and boring is an understatement.

The plot is basically about a Civil War vet returning home to his family and becoming involved in a feud with their neighbors. There is nothing compelling to drive the story forward, there are long scenes of characters doing mundane things and not too much happens in this. I wonder what was the point of making it. Is it supposed to be experimental? I don't get it. The performances from the actors were, in my opinion, quite subpar. William Forseythe did what he could I suppose, but you can't build a house without a foundation, and this script's foundation was never laid. I'll assume it's lazy writing, what else could it be? Also, the accents of the actors were way off, not even remotely realistic.

I regret spending time watching it.

...and unfortunately, this is one of them. Where does one even begin with this debacle?

Let's start with the dialogue: OMG, people during the Civil War era didn't speak like the way the writers of this have written the characters. That immediately erased any suspension of disbelief.

Next, the performances weren't terrible, but they weren't great either. A really deft cast might have been able to improvise the poorly written dialogue to elevate the film and their performances, but instead we are left with characters sounding almost like the way people in today's society would speak.

Cinematography was okay for the most part but became a bit self-indulgent for the worse at a few points.

The movie crawls along and is sabotaged by it's sluggish pacing. This film could have easily been a 60-70 minute film instead of a drawn-out 100 minute yawner.

The overall story suffers from a complete lack of originality and consequently fails to really draw in the viewer. There are a few scenes that work, but the majority of them in this film are pointless and somewhat incoherent.

If you value your time, you might want to avoid this one.