Anton

I saw this at The Boston Irish Film Festival 2008. It has merit on all fronts. Gee, How many American movies started with €5,000 euro pack this punch?! The acting is exemplary and the direction while safe delivers when its called for. Mc Sorely is incredible and Fox in his first Lead ( I think) in a movie holds his own very well against him. The character he plays is very hard to get to grips with in the early scenes but once the movie gathered pace one could understand his mindset. The supporting cast (again unknown) deliver truthful performances often missing from films of this caliber and budget. There are places where it's budget is telling but the ambition and the sheer scale for little money has to be commended. The audience in Harvard were well impressed. African American, Irish American, Hispanic American. Seriously it was amazing coming as I do from an English heritage to see this cross section engage with an Irish Film on so many levels. At first I was terrified this is yet another Brit bashing movie but was pleasantly surprised by how focused it was on the family and how the conflict in Northern Ireland was purely a background to what is a gritty truthful movie.

I've only seen 'Anton' once and need to see it again. Although I was sitting toward the rear of the theatre in Dundrum, the images seemed to be on top of me, like I was on the front row. A lot was happening and the style was neither t.v. nor cinema - I don't know what it was, but I don't doubt the sincerity of intent - nor the escape from pseudo-agitprop 'Troubles' genres and avoidance of soap-motif the film represents.

I certainly had a couple of quibbles, mostly continuity, though with over 20 gaffes in 'Quantum of Solace' - despite the huge budget - continuity must be no more than a film-maker's irritation on the way to box-office consummation.

I'm really only writing this as a balance to the slightly hysterical foot-stampings contained in some other 'Anton' comments.

Personal agendas are, by definition, self-revealing - am I mistaken in believing Eamonn McCann was a little put-out, on 'The View', that nobodies were getting their hands dirty in his sacred soil - well, I know there are a thousand such tales strung along the 'border' which will never see the light of day but which underpin the veracity of this particular film.

With regard to performances - as above, I'm not really sure until I've seen 'Anton' again. There was an intensity and urgency which separates this film from its commercial counterparts and there were even moments which reminded me of Ken Russell's 'Women in Love' (D.H. Lawrence) and I'd like to have seen more.

What was singularly in short supply was playing to the camera/pandering to the crowds/prostrating before the money-men, and for that alone these film-makers deserve more than bicycle-shed bickering.

Next time I see the film I will have a better idea of the answers to the bag of questions my first viewing dumped in my lap, but with energy, integrity and intent, this actually Irish film avoids the manicured story-lines of Big-House-Entertainment and digs around in the undergrowth - not an easy place to make a film.

If any of the makers read this - thank you for a seriously challenging piece - I suspect it is more to do with the future of film-making in Ireland than the past - I hope it is a passport to further work.

This movie is inept on so many levels I don't know where to start.

First of all, I appreciate it's an independent release and must have required some effort to get it funded and shot etc. but that's about the only kind thing I could say.

Ordinarily if an Independent movie is poor there's at least something to hook you in, or the embryo of a good idea in there somewhere, something that leaves the viewer at least saying that it had potential but not here.

The movie is not that long, around 90 minutes but by the end you'll feel like you've spent an eternity in purgatory. The story is muddled, confusing and meanders from one location to the next. Acting is atrocious, how Gerard McSorely got roped into this will go down as one of the great mysteries of our time. The worst crime of all though is that at no point did I care about any of the characters involved.

I'm an Irish citizen, and the troubles as they were referred to here should provide plenty of inspiration to would be film makers who surely could be able to come up with something a little more exciting than this?

When you set out to make an Independent film you do so with the intention of doing the best job you can with the resources available to you. When there is no definitive budget, (by that I mean, when you're not financed) it means there is no definitive time-line for completion. The majority of time is spent scraping together money piece-meal. You receive no income for your efforts and end up in crippling debt.

So why do it? Well; A filmmaker makes films and that involves taking a leap of faith.

Two years have passed since the completion of the film and with the forthcoming UK DVD release on October 11 (http://www.highfliersplc.com/product/284/) it's interesting to reflect on the expectations we had. The act of completion, finding an audience, and the subsequent sale of the film, (in over thirty territories to date) is all a filmmaker can ask.

Ultimately what you're left with is the satisfaction of a successful outcome to your endeavours and the belief to take another leap of faith, coming to a cinema near you in the very near future?

Whilst credit must go to the filmmakers for actually getting Anton produced, sadly they have not done themselves any real favours by putting this story up on the big screen.

Whilst there are certainly moments in the film which work, overall it is simply a mess. Watching it, I wondered at times whether this was in fact an experimental avant-garde piece masquerading as a mainstream thriller. That seemed to be the only possible explanation for the missing plot points, lack of character motivation and general incoherence of the film. However, in truth, this is nothing more than a collection of scenes in search of a script review.

To give an example: at a mid-point in the film Anton escapes from prison. In the next scene he enters what seems to be an abandoned warehouse and takes a gun from a toilet cistern before being confronted and chased by two police officers. We have never seen this location before. It is not explained why there is a gun in the cistern or how Anton knew it was there. We do not know how the police tracked him to this location. We are simply asked to accept that this is so and move on. Apparently the film is based on the writer's own experience, so perhaps he knows the answers to these questions, but a simple review by an experienced script editor would have pointed out that its quite important for the audience to know these things too.

In short, there are suggestions that the filmmakers could do better work in the future, but as an overall piece of work this film is seriously flawed.