The Mason Brothers

From some of the other reviews I was indeed expecting a bit of a 'Reservoir Dog"-ish type of dynamic. And although at the very basic level this film does have a somewhat similar plot line, the acting, execution, characters, and in particularly the ending, are absolutely horrid.

I usually don't go by the really negative reviews on here where people give an extremely low rating (i.e 1 or 2) but this movie absolutely deserves it.

Not too much else to say other than stay AWAY from this piece of garbage. There are an infinite amount of other similar types of movies that are also infinitely better.

At its core, the story is very similar to Reservoir Dogs, a bank heist goes horribly wrong, a crew man is shot, the bank robbers then seek answers while violently bickering among each other. But there are some key differences. In this film, its another bank robbery crew that violently interrupts the main characters robbery, the characters are also all brothers, plus the film is set in more modern times. But how does it compare to Reservoir Dogs. Well obviously its not nearly as good, but the film is also not bad by any means. With solid acting, writing good enough to keep you interested, an a fantastic musical score.

So what was good and what was bad. Well first off some of the acting was good. A few of the actors did a serviceable job portraying their characters, while a few others don't appear to be acting, just being themselves on camera. The musical score was also top notch, I felt like it really complimented the film well. And finally, the writing is moderately good enough to keep me interested in how the story would end. The cinematography was nothing special, very average shooting with little to no artistic direction.

So would I recommend this film? I don't really know, i suppose if you like Reservoir Dogs, you might like it, but then again you might not, its up to you.

The Mason Brothers is a well written crime thriller, an overall artistic style with intriguing story telling. The acting is dramatic, the cinematography really brings the audience into every scene and the vivid score is superb. Love the intensity of the music throughout. At times the film seems like a stage play with intimate close up scenes and then it breaks out into dramatic confrontations. Well done film, looking forward to the next.

As soon as the starting credits rolled and I saw Keith Sutliff's name in almost every line, I knew I was in trouble. Actor, producer, writer, director, production manager, editor, location manager, casting director, second unit director, assistant director, production designer, art director, casting department, art researcher, production controller, production coordinator and *whew* finally set decorator Keith Sutliff bit off waaaay more than he can chew. I mean seriously?

Look, I get this is a low budget indie film and Kieth is a amateur filmmaker, but had he gone to a good film school, lesson #1 is to spread the talent. There are seasoned filmmakers out there that can't wear more than 3-4 hats, but throwing your name in all these roles is a recipe for disaster. This film is worse than any other C-grade film I've seen.

The only surprisingly redeeming quality this film had was the score. It was great in building tension to something.. that never happened. Luckily Keith Sutliff didn't do the score.

Everything else about this film was a flop. I don't think I have ever seen any film with such long, dragged out, dumb, irrelevant and useless scenes AND dialogue. What was the point of the girlfriends? Who cares about the trip to Vegas? etc... A 5th grader could've written a much better screenplay. There were more plot issues and holes than in Swiss cheese. Every time one of the leads said "shut up" to the other guys for rambling, I had already said it at least 5 times!

The pacing was atrocious. The 114 min length of this film felt like 5+ hours. This film needed to be edited/cut down to a short film 15-25 min long. Keith however did do a decent job with the some of the camera directing, although leaving a camera on a tripod in that coffee table room doesn't need much skill. But he really failed in directing his stale, balding and boring cast.

Then the current 5 fake/paid reviews even mentioning any comparison to Reservoir Dogs is an insult to that film and a huge insult to Quentin Tarantino, beyond forgiveness. I'm guessing that Keith Sutliff is simply trying to add credits to his resume, but had he stuck to only directing and maybe acting in this film, and subbed out the rest to more experienced crew, this film would have had a better showing - which is far more important than resume credits towards a flop film. I give him 1 star for his efforts, and another for the only redeeming quality, the score, which was very impressive and better than some B-grade films I've seen lately. Thus it's an honest and generous 2/10 from me.

I moved to LA about a year ago and stumbled upon some posts and comments about Keith Sutliff and this film. After seeing some marketing photos/posts with billboards of the poster on city buses I thought "oh geez, another bootleg attempt at trying to be 'Hollywood' and I'm sure this is garbage like most failed attempts at being 'cool' in this industry." I was super surprised at how much I liked this project! Not only does the way the story is presented remind me of Reservoir Dogs, I actually liked the characters and actors. Very impressed by the work by Sutliff and I'm already looking forward to his next flick, which is either in pre-prod or already filming! If you're reading this Keith, great work and great acting! Cheers! -David Thomas Newman