Wild Seven

Had been really excited about seeing this at the LA Film Festival. Other festival films had been excellent. This one really disappointed. And the audience also thought so...

Mostly at a festival screening, the audience of movie buffs applaud at the ending, and stay through to the end of the credits. For this bomb, there was no applause, just a puzzled sigh of relief when it finished, and the audience bolted like they do in a multiplex - the theater was practically empty by the time the credits finished rolling.

It had the feeling of a high school play, written and performed by a high school drama group, with the exception of the three seasoned actors who did a valiant job to breathe some life into the narrow characters they had been saddled with, with way too many unnecessary lines.

Too many characters, that were lightweight or had non-existent back stories. The "sunrise- sunset" device was way overused and became tedious. Dialog and editing was way too loose with many pauses that served no purpose. Doubt if there was much on the cutting room floor, as there were many scenes in there that did nothing to advance the story or give more depth to the characters.

Half the dialog consisted of a group of unexplained twenty-somethings getting drunk and accusing each other of gayness. This alone could been edited to trim 20 minutes from the overly long film. Script did not reflect a great depth or breadth of life experience, and often came across as corny.

A few good moments - the father and son scene in the convenience store, the smartass getting smacked in the face, and some of the acting by the older actors, particularly Loggia, whose angry and credible racism made me genuinely uncomfortable.

But the ending did not deliver any real emotional payoff, and any chance of plot payoff was lost long before the ending finally arrived.

And the main credits - cute device, but quickly became as tedious as a child who won't stop asking the question "Why?" over and over.

Which leads me to my final question on this movie, "Why?"

ya see this is what happens when you are too influenced by a director's style which is just out of your league. OK we get it, you like Tarantino, nothing wrong with that, but when you quite clearly don't have the writing skill that he has and none of your friends who you cast in the movie bother to tell you your material is sub par, well that's when stinkers like this piece of junk get made into actual movies that waste people's time and money, and when you waste people's time and money then that's when you get people feeling compelled to write and warn everyone that your work is rubbish, well shot rubbish with reasonable sound etc but content wise, annoyingly bad.

What made you rush your ability? Why'd you bite off way more than you could chew, and who green lite this stinker? truth is there is some craft in your movie, but none of it has to do with story or content, which is so overwhelmingly bad and so obviously derivative at a level well below those of the people you emulate that it kinda makes me angry.

what a waste of time. stay well clear.

Man-I would just like to say to the director of this film: DON'T LISTEN TO ALL THOSE WHINY CRITICS! I mean, "Matchstick Men" as a recommendation? Please. Listen: this is obviously a young filmmaker and an impressive feat for one of his first movies. The guy had the wherewithal to pull it off and utilize some amazing, overlooked talent. The setting is gorgeous, there are incisive bits of off-color humour, and, despite the comparisons to Tarantino, the writing is pretty original. And so what if something reflects Tarantino? He's one of the greatest and most popular directors of our time! Isn't most art derivative? Tarantino obviously contributed to the culture in which this young director was raised. Give him a break! Frankly (at the LA festival), I was captivated and refreshed by the young talents that are part of this movie.

This was a cool film. It is guerrilla indy film making and I just love those movies. I was wondering how much it cost for the CG scorpion and some other effects in the movie such as the time lapse shots in the desert. It is really well done with how they stretched the budget their is a lot of locations and effects and a lot of actors. Did the older actors take a pay cut for the movie? The movie does not go in chronological order so I wasn't sure if some key scenes were cut out or not, but there are still some holes that were never filled. Was the movie really filmed in Arizona? This movie is a good time and it seems a little slow in the beginning, but once it picks up it is pretty good. And for a movie with a low budget it has great special effects.

I really enjoyed this movie! I love the old school actors that were chosen for this movie! Like Richard Roundtree aka the original shaft... can you dig it! I loved him from his 70's role as the hardcore mac daddy and he did a good job in this movie! I also liked Robert Loggia! Heis a pimp! I loved him as Tom Hanks boss in big and his role in independence day.. my favorite movie! I felt that Loggia did a good acting job as well in this movie! He played a great crazy old man! Anyhow.. I felt the director did a good job with the camera angles and his style is very unique and fresh! I would recommend this movie to all!