Crimefighters

Having been a big fan of Miles Watts' online Zomblogalypse series for a while now, I was excited to see what this feature would be like.

Loved: cinematography, geeking out moments, goofy one-liners, lighting/noir feel, editing, gorgeous shots of York, characters, music!

Weaknesses: Sure, the actors were no Oscar winners. But I found them believable, if not a little awkward, but hell, I'm a geek and proud of it, and geeks are slightly awkward. They were people I felt I could be friends with. The fight scenes were amusing, but of course there were times where people were NOT hitting each other. Hard to catch unless you're pedantic about it. They were obviously not professional stunt-men. The plot itself was a little light and convoluted at times, and I left the theatre with a few questions.

But overall, I thought it was a great effort, and I'm very impressed with the quality for £7000. I'm looking forward to the next feature.

I went to see this film, as it sounded interesting and also wanted to support independent film makers. I wish I'd gone to see something else instead.

I don't know how many drafts the script went through, but it clearly wasn't enough. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic and a lot of the time sounds like it was made up as they went along. As the other reviewer stated, you would move away if you were sitting next to these people in real life. The plot also needed some tweaking, as the characters seemed to become crime fighters for something to do instead of go to the pub. At least Batman had his murdered parents to avenge.

The fight scenes (when they finally happened) were totally unbelievable and badly directed. I've seen better fight scenes in video games.

The acting is mediocre at best and at least one person is completely miscast. Some of the acting is so wooden in places that the actors could start a blaze if they rubbed up against each other.

This film apparently cost £7,000 to make. I think some of that should have gone to the director for glasses, as there were at least couple of scenes which were out of focus! I don't know if the director was trying to be clever, but it didn't work.

I cannot recommend this film at all, unless it's to see how not to make one. And the only reason I give it 2 stars is to hopefully encourage the director to have another go, as I'm sure that with a bit more effort this could have been a much better film. In fact it might be worth remaking at a later date, in the way that Michael Mann remade L.A. Takedown into Heat

I fell in love with this film within the first few moments. Gargoyle-studded opening titles. Seductive black and white photography; and a funky music montage all set the scene for a distinctively different comic-style retro movie. Welcome a band of deadbeat girlie crimefighters. (Actually just two girls and a lad – but he's a bit of a big girl's blouse so not much difference). They have masks! And spandex! Bye, bye, Charlies' Angels. Welcome the geeks from next door. But, tragically, I fall out of love with disappointing speed. I am heartbroken. It was a great idea. I did so want to like it. Yet it was . . . cr*p. Plain and simple: it sucks.

Photography throughout CrimeFighters is indeed beautiful. Gorgeous. Gothic. The director, Miles Watts, and director of photography, Paul Richardson, apparently wanted CrimeFighters to be a living comic book. Not so much Sin City, as homage to the style of Tim Burton's Batman. Full of dark, twisted alleys filled with heroes and villains. In terms of cinematography, they have succeeded. Admirably. But such achievement sadly serves to highlight shortcomings elsewhere.

The story has our trio take it into their heads to become local vigilantes. To fight a crime wave and with added branding. Superhero party masks. Iconic CF logos. One of them even does kung-fu (of sorts). These girls (and guy) cannot be accused of pretentiousness. The film is shot entirely in York – a place in the North of England - and on a miniscule budget of £7000. The team deserve real credit for getting it into the Edinburgh International Film Festival. But at the same time, Britain does suffer badly from a surfeit of encouragement to the wrong sort of promise. The result is inspired mediocrity rather than inspired genius. And funds and attention go to the former at the expense of the latter. Real creative talent is strangled. Large segments of our UK film industry continue to be a backwater of charming homemade 'efforts.'

The acting here, even if it nice that it was locally recruited, is of very poor quality. Ineffectual timing and rushed lines add to an overall lack of pacing. It is not lack of effort: but lack of expertise that is at fault. Characters that are poorly defined in the first place are even less than convincing as a result of bad delivery, and there is no help on hand from the tedious verbal detritus that they somehow believe is a script. It is as if someone looked at a Tarantino extended chitchat scene and thought it was easy. But while trivia is the hands of a master can be fascinating, here is laborious. Overhearing their pub conversations in real life would make you move to another table rather than eavesdrop. If you found yourself drinking with them, you would fall asleep before you could commit suicide. Less would have been more. And more work on the screenplay, even at the risk of delaying the project, might have paid off. Additionally, far too much time is squandered before getting to the meat of the story. The eventual fights look pretend – and not in a tongue-in-cheek 'good' way either. Muggings are just as poorly faked and embarrassing to behold. Bring back Charlies' Angels and mainstream popcorn, all is forgiven. Sin City was a different direction and had a different sort of 'living' to its comic-book look. But but the direction was clearly defined and its execution flawless. Deathproof's dialogues that seemed trite held hidden tonguetwisters and mindgames for dedicated fans. Watchmen and Ghostworld were all distinctive looks, just as much as Batman. But they were backed up with good storytelling. Low budget? How about Kick Ass? Or inspiration from the true budget classic, Clerks. (Admittedly it cost several times more than CrimeFighters to make, but it cut its coat according to its cloth – something singularly avoided in this overambitious exercise.)

Strong will, passion, talent, even a good script, do not have to run up superhuman bank balances it would seem. CrimeFighters even fails to draw successfully on a feminist trash aesthetic, such as Tank Girl. One hopes that Watts & Co will learn enough from the movie to re-trench, get back in touch with their inner filmmaker, and make something that is more heartfelt and not just career-minded. These CrimeFighters are unfortunately running before they can walk. On and off screen.

I've seen some bad films in my time from Tommy Wiseau's 'The Room' to the 'Super Mario Brothers' movie to 'Batman and Robin' to that really bad remake of 'Nightmare on Elm Street' from a few years back.

Of course, this is my subjective experience and opinion of the film but I've studied allot of the history of cinema and media to believe in my own opinions and I think that this film is terrible. It quite literally gets everything wrong apart from one suspicious but funny male character in the film and some bits of the soundtrack but apart from that I genuinely can't think of anything good about this film.

Just by looking at the blurb and seeing that it is about 'three bored friends looking for something else to do aside from going to the pub' its clear that this is a film with little effort put into it. However, there are good films with a plot along the lines of this one (shaun of the dead 'hint hint') but what sets crimefighters apart from the rest of the pack is boring characters, bad actors, shoddy lighting, an incoherent and jumbled plot where plot-points come in at random and a wholly anti-climactic ending with a pointless villain reveal that's wasted by forces other than the heroes solving the plot.

I know this was made on a budget of about £7000 but even then, i've seen indie, arty comedies like this with likable characters, relatable themes, good plots and writing and good progression which are most certainly aspects that this film lacks.