Ash & Dust

This is a slooooow burning film. It's so slow that I'd remove the word "burn" and replace it with "kinda glows then fizzles and dies."

Ash & Dust struck me as a first film (i.e., debut feature length for director) and it wasn't marketed aggressively so I am giving it some slack. There are some promising elements, but they never coalesce into a holistic entity.

Acting is pretty good for the most part, but a few actors are not meant for that career and I won't name names.

Finally, in case anyone is wondering why there are some 8- 9- and 10-star reviews, simply click on those reviewers' user names and you'll see that if they aren't one-review accounts, they've all reviewed the exact same movies including "Hyde", "Angie: Lost Girls", and "Devil Djinn" on almost identical dates. IMDB needs to start charging money for the ability to post reviews or do what Yelp! Does and actually police the fake ones. This is the main reason the site is useless for deciding whether to watch indie flicks these days.

If I had the chance again, Ash & Dust would get a hard pass from me.

3/10 for story plus 1/10 for decent cinematography = 4/10, just barely watchable.

If you need to understand this film's plot, follow closely, these simple steps.

Copy the entire 83 minutes, snag some freeware from the Internet that allows the movie to be played in reverse.

Toss some popcorn into the microwave.

Delete the file you just created, the popcorn is way better, believe me.

Watching this movie was such a frustrating and ultimately fruitless endeavor. There were so many things going on, very little dialogue to explain it, and not enough of what was going on was interesting enough to keep even the most patient viewer connected. (FYI, I contemplated turning it off at the 20 minute mark, then again at the 40 minute mark.) It is one of those films that aims to be more than what it is, but the talent behind it just isn't cohesive enough and at such different levels, what you ended up getting was a movie that wanted to be and could have been something interesting, but ends up falling flat on its face.

I'm not going to go into details about the film itself, but for a story about revenge and why people embark on it, there were maybe 20 lines of dialogue throughout its entire running time. When someone did speak, the acting was often stilted and just plain bad, like someone was reading from a script. The dialogue was simple and had very little nuance, and made the movie that much worse.

Perhaps it might have been an even better movie if no one had spoken at all.

The two sole high points of the film are the cinematography and the soundtrack. The movie is beautiful, with some great shots of the wilderness and some really dynamic framing. Likewise, the soundtrack was haunting and really pulled you into the events taking place, even when there really wasn't anything going on.

Overall, this movie frustrated me, to the point where I wish I hadn't even bothered watching it. It was just a slog to get through, and I'd discourage anyone from even thinking about giving this one a go.

Avoid it completely.

Ash & Dust takes the murder revenge story and paints it in three primary colors: white for the absence of hope, black for the finality of death, and red for the bloody consequences of fury. There are no zippy comic relief one liners, no superhuman feats of courage or strength, no Hail Mary miraculous escapes, no perfunctory child in distress, no super villain to outsmart, and no hope in hell for salvation. Made even more melancholoc by a perfectly scored soundtrack, Ash & Dust accomplishes something rarely seen in today's eggshell sidestepping movies, a fierce and unapologetic depiction of death.

What can I say? This film made absolutely no sense at all, the synopsis says 2 couples dig up a box and get involved with a criminal element. The whole film made no sense, someone gets shot who I couldn't make any connection with then another and another.

It was an absolute joke, all I will say is it was like a box of angry frogs.

I have it a 2 rating because I'm sitting here watching it in the UKs hottest day on record and this has snow in it which is kinda cooling me a little.

Avoid this if you can, poorly written and directed.