Defective

It was a fun little movie. It doesn't deserve all the low ratings from the syfy nerds on here.

This is a very low budget indie film, primarily with C & B actors, and will rate it as such on its own merits.

Novice director and writer Reese Eveneshen did a surprisingly impressive job with directing the cameras and scenes, and for the great cinematography and decent score (the only reason I rated this high), but poorly in directing his actors, and even worse in the writing and screenplay.

How can anyone let certain scenes make the final cut? For example at the start, Rhett's sister gets shot and Rhett just stands there like an idiot. Seriously? Then his sister towards the end of the film says she doesn't know how to use a gun, but starts shooting like a marine. And there's much more in between.

This screenplay needed a huge make-over and needed to be cut down from a ridiculous 101 mins to around 70 mins with a faster pace. Many scenes were dragged out far too long with annoying, confusing and unnecessary dialogue. Had the producers invested in a better screenwriter instead the costs involved for the lousy, unnecessary and ridiculous gore (was this film even rated horror/gore?), this film would have been much better.

The acting was atrocious, part blame the actors and part to the director for not directing them during their scenes. The only decent actors were Rhett's sister and Dennis Andres as Pierce. Colin Paradine's character Rhett was unconvincing, boring and very stale. All the rest were pretty much embarrassing.

I know this film will get slammed as most amateur IMDb reviewers will rate this equally and comparable to a huge Hollywood blockbuster production, so I am giving it a generous 6/10 for the great cinematography and directing, and for a fair attempt to produce this type of film on such a small budget.

In general, it hits all the buttons of dystopian suspense, i.e. you quickly realize the plot is scratching along a well-mined seam. Some here whammy the acting, some the directing, or both. I think the directing and editing of closeups deserve the most criticism ... leaving actors, who are struggling with the concept of how to look stunned, confused, frightened ... or just thoughtful ... hanging up there on the screen for seemingly endless moments. Action movies need their moments of painful introspection, but this was out of control. Even in the midst of a hairy shoot-em-up you have people staring into space. A serious incomprehension of timing. Otherwise, yeah, if you love watching movies, and like sci-fi, I'd recommend this. Mediocre, yes, and it would probably deserve a 6 ... but when I find myself becoming aware of directing flaws while watching a movie, it's automatically down by 2. (BTW ... how in the world can people use a sci-fi flic as a launching pad for their political woof-woof, is beyond me. This site ain't FB.)

This film was based on a worn out theme with no new twist. The direction, acting and dialogue were very low quality. The foul language and graphical sadism added nothing to the story. No idea what the ending meant and I lost track of the dark haired women that kept appearing.

'Defective' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an intriguing premise that is one of the most creative ones of any low-budget film seen recently and as someone with a general appreciation for the genre. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive as well as the low rating and poor reviews.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws those films have are present here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Defective' is very weak, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too and the worst assets terrible) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is very little to recommend and no that it's low-budget has little to do with the lacking execution, there are films made on a modest/low budget that are surprisingly good.

Not irredeemable though. The sets have some atmosphere and the film is surprisingly decently shot, being neither drab or static but instead reasonably fluid.

Raven Cousens and particularly Dennis Andres give competent performances that are heads and shoulders above the rest of the cast.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are not really worth mentioning, especially the near uniformly embarrassing support which ranged between being hammy or robotic. Colin Parradine struggles to do anything with a flat character and comes over as very anaemic and out of his depth. While the director does decently with the visual style, when it comes to the directing of the actors and the story that's where the direction fails badly. Far too many times the cast are made to look hopeless or with aimless direction and there is very little sense of coherence or momentum.

Found 'Defective' to be about 15-20 minutes too long, which easily could have been rectified by cutting out the large amount of unnecessary fat/padding and shortening or tightening scenes that dragged out endlessly, too many of those as well. It is very frustrating when a film has a creative concept and brings it out on screen in a dull and predictable way, with huge lapses in plausibility and logic, lots of head-scratching and face-palming ridiculousness, draggy pacing, no tension or suspense whatsoever and a reveal that was handled far too ludicrously.

Sadly the criticisms don't end there. The dialogue is rambling and stilted with a lot of intrigue and gibberish. The characters are neither interesting or easy to get behind, a major case of who cares here. The heroes make too many stupid decisions and have indistinct personalities to allow one to get to know them or root for them. Similarly the villains have no menace and actually come over as flatly realised and silly. There is nothing emotionally investable, there are attempts at emotional moments but it was impossible to feel anything when the characters were so flat and indifferent and the interactions non-descript.

In conclusion, weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox