Négatif

'Negative' is a dialogue film about trust and courage presenting opposite characters on the run from a cartel. There are several well- acted scenes, and others that seem like alternative shots better left out. While some plot elements seem contrived, the direction and choreography work in the movie's favor to drive a sequence of captivating themes by way of conversation that trample the sleaziness and pretentiousness of lesser films, all with the backdrop of a majestic desert that connects Los Angeles and Arizona.

Have to write to defend this... it's a perfectly decent film.

Katia Winter (Natalie) is good, captivating even, and everyone else is fine where, except for the photographer, they perform calm, minimalist characters. It fits with the mood of the film, some nice contemplative scenes, and dialog that, while others have said is weak, is also fine. Bits of mundane, predictable conversation isn't so far from real life I suspect, and I think it adds to the film, to keep it 'small'.

Not sure I know what cinematography really is, nor directing for that matter, but it seems relatively well put together.

I would agree that the weakness is the story logic, It almost worked that there was no time spent showing how the pursuers were tracking our leads, but not quite. Even a scene or two of them just asking a shop employee or two would have been enough (there was a nice moment where the male pursuer chats to a little boy tho). But ultimately, never saying how Natalie found our photographer or why it would matter so much to our pursuers kind of gnawed at me.

A negative rating for Negative.

I'm not sure what accomplished director/producer/cinematographer Joshua Caldwell was thinking taking on this project.

This film has got to be the epitome of terrible writing and should be a classroom example of 'what not to do' when writing a screenplay. Why would Joshua take on (clearly) amateur writer Adam Gaines script is beyond me. Even his good directing and excellent cinematography could not save this disaster.

Aside from the super obvious plot holes and very poor story overall, the dragged-out unnecessary dialogue made this film unbearable and extremely boring. The way too long 1h 39min film length felt like 4 hours and I found myself saying "get on with it already, who cares!" when the two leads would just ramble on about nothing relevant. This movie may have been interesting if it was a 30 min short film (which oddly enough is the only minimal writing experience Adam Gaines has).

The acting was decent and Katia Winter was very easy on the eyes to look at, but her chemistry with Simon Quarterman was very unconvincing. Maybe it was the boring dialogue they had that made their chemistry absent.

Even the maybe total of 10 minutes of action scenes were overly dragged out. The rest of the film was primarily useless garbage dialogue with absolutely no point to the story - start to finish.

Don't waste your time with this one. See the trailer, and that's all the good and interesting parts you'll need to see.

This gets a 3/10 strictly for the directing and cinematography.

Not a bad movie, typical 'on the run ex-agent' movie with a reasonable storyline. The acting is a bit one dimensional but, at least where Katia Winter is concerned, that seems more down to the script that has her talk like an automaton for the first 75% of the movie. I get get it, she's supposed to be a ruthless professional but it sounds too strained. The single most annoying thing that really spoils the movie though is the male 'lead'. Seriously, a more pathetic excuse for an individual you've never seen, immature, gutless and pathetic he literally does nothing but whinge and bleat throughout the entire movie. Obviously the story needs this individual to be 'normal' and in awe of Natalie but his 'total 24/7 wimp' persona was way overdone and makes him outright annoying to the point of spoiling the movie which would otherwise have been OK, but no more than OK.

The guy still used a cheap, out-dated film camera took pictures? Still got dark room with red light to develop his films? Wow, if the story background is in the 80', I might buy the whole story more willingly. As to the storyline itself, that guy just took pictures randomly in the street, and he randomly took a picture of a woman in the park, then went home to develop what he took that day. Then the woman just showed up, knocked his apartment door and asked him to give her the negative. This is when I WOWed again. Then the so-called two killers, one male and one female Columbian Cartel, just like her showed up at this guy's apartment. Then well, she forced this guy to run away with her to Phoenix, Arizona. The storyline and the scenarios simply got so many loopholes that even a moron would find it difficult to swallow. She had already burnt and dumped everything she used to have, credit cards, phone, SIM card, passports, flash drive...whatever, there's no electronic chip planted under her skin, so why these two Columbian killers could still so easily follow up her trail? Why the British intelligence got to do business with the Columbian Cartel? Why she had to force this deadbeat so-called photographer to run away with her? Just because if without taking a male on the road trip and two assassins chasing after her, the story simply would become impossible to develop?

Bad movies are always full of holes without any logic, this film, although shot with some beautiful road scenes, sunrise and sunset, desert....yet the whole story was just based on a ridiculous ground. The two leading roles, the so-called British agent (Spy? For what?!) and the down-and-out photographer, actually performed pretty good, but again, if the premises of the storyline are ridiculous, there's no way to make them great. When films have to force the viewers to abandon their I.Q. and basic logic senses, they are just BAD films, and this one is no exception.