Most Likely To

The story is really engaging, which is surprising considering that there's a lot of lamenting the high school/college days. Here, we really do care about the memories these guys are looking back on - they're defined by them. Being able to keep a singular, static two-shot on characters remembering those old glory days while keeping the audience hanging on every word is a good testament to how involved you can become in this story.

Everything about this movie just seems very thoroughly purposed and thought out, from the writing and cinematography to the directing and acting. It's an incredibly intriguing character study, and as a writer/director it was very interesting to watch how both events and emotions played out and the decisions that were made.

8/10, because there's almost always room for improvement somewhere, and because you know.. gotta be stingy with those higher numbers. ;)

Having never heard of Matt Austin or any of the actors in his film, I had very little expectations going into watching "Most Likely To". I'm lucky I got in. Though I'm sure most of the audience were part of Matt's friends or family or perhaps fans of Matt's on camera antics from being one of the Power Rangers, the screening at the Canadian Filmmaker's Film Festival was completely sold out and random people waited to try and get in. As it was the closing night film, and that is a great honor, the line waiting to get into the theatre was a buzz with chatter about what this low budget flick would be like. You would never know it was shot in three days and apparently with a budget of somewhere around $15,000. Now don't get me wrong it's not a film that will play at all the number one film festivals around the world, and it may not be something that gets reviewed in Variety as a film that will change the world, but Matt Austin's world may. You are left with the feeling of wondering what this 'kid' could do with a more mature script, budget, and heck, maybe even a week of shooting next time. The soundtrack feels very particular, like Austin has selected each song to reverberate the scene and leave you wanting to find out who the band was, and his knack for picking music crosses over to the actors as well. It's a tight ensemble and no one stands out more than the other, but they all stand together. Though they may be his friends, usually indie films of this nature have terrible or plastic performances and in this you can tell that Austin has a definite touch of getting the best of out of his cast. I don't know if it's because of this film he will be getting work as a commercial, or music video director or he has another feature ready to go, but I trust that whatever he does will be worth watching.