Let's say you want to make (boom) a movie. So you get your friends and family together, write a script, (boom boom) find a location, grab a hand-held video camera (boom) and maybe someone to work with some sound (boom) equipment, (boom) and BOOM (boom)! You start making your movie. If you (boom) are very creative and resourceful, (boom boom)) your movie might be reasonably good.
(boom) This movie appears to have been (boom) made with the above formula, unfortunately it did not (boom) turn out very well in my opinion. It has a very (boom boom) amateur feel about it from start to finish, where (boom) nothing flows smoothly or works convincingly. (boom) The acting is either wooden or overdone, (boom) the special effects are downright (boom) silly, and there are the usual violations (boom boom) of common sense. Those occur when (boom) writers attempt to force their characters to follow (boom) the storyline, rather than have the character (boom boom) reactions grow organically from the (boom) original idea. It feels forced throughout. (boom boom).
In addition, the music is the usual (boom )variety that has come to be associated with cinema of (boom ) this type: garage band grind. Call me crazy, but I've never felt that this type of music was ever appropriate for these kinds of movies. It always (boom boom) feels like just when the action starts, and you lean into the TV to see it, there is a blast of hard rock from your (boom) garage. It doesn't really pull you in, it distracts you like crazy. And yet, (boom) every movie of this genre always uses it. It's become (boom) incredibly cliché.
Finish up with a subdued bass drum beat that insistently runs throughout nearly the entire film regardless of it's effectiveness or appropriateness with the scenes, and you get a movie that is better at making you sleep than it is at thrilling you. If you have read this far, you will have noticed that the booms are really distracting and out of place. Rather than building tension, they hypnotically lull you.
Even after all these faults, the film has some small charms. It is mostly comedic, though it's a dry sort of comedy. My favorite part of the entire movie is when out of nowhere, two characters have a politically charged argument about prostitution. Earlier on, there is also an appearance by a character that makes.. no sense at all and simply doesn't belong. But they go with it anyway.
You can also tell that the cast is enjoying itself, and that does count for a lot. Still, there are too many rough edges on this one. Hopefully their later works (there are some) are more polished.
