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Sound from the Deep (2017)
More of a proof a concept than a true film
Making of great movie is hard thing to a accomplish. The process of creating one manage that requires time, money and skill and an ability to make sacrifices in one aspect to benefit the whole whilst also managing the budget and the limited time you have to film paid actors is a taunting task. Often an impossible one and results in product that was not quite what the director envisioned due to too many restraints.
Not without merit, the writing and directing due of Joonas Allonen and Antti Laakso manage to create a fantastic setting and a premise for their H.P. Lovecraft inspired story that is respectful to the source of it's inspiration, going as far as adapting some of the wording in actors lines. Whether that was a smart move, remains another topic.
Set in the arctic ocean 'Sound from the Deep' is a homage to "Call of Cthulhu" with aspects of other stories of Lovecraft written in. The elements displayed along with brief moments of being a proper story brings me hope that it was only the lack of of resources that shrunk this movie to it's length and quality and not the lack of talent, effort or passion of the writers and directors.
Unfortunately, the great ideas and glimmers of ingenious choices are washed away with many a cinematic sin, from pacing, editing, framing and inefficient use of lighting. The story itself rushes a good premise of an building paranoia and distrust while solving a mystery to a uninteresting jog through set pieces with little room for atmosphere or time to develop characters or events. The arctics deep dark nights and brighter than bright days aren't utilized for contrast although surely a great deal of eerie atmosphere could be pulled from the setting.
The sound design is horrendous despite being in the title and subject of the movie, it is unimaginative and doesn't equally understand how to pull the audiences strings. Take for example the glorious sounds of the hull warping under the pressure of 'Das Boot', or the eerie creaking ever present on board the 'The Terror', how simple sounds create the backdrop of discomfort to scenes and you know this film desperately needed just that.
Acting in this movie is probably worst things around: everybody is struggling with their thicker than stone accents parred with clunky dialogue that no human would speak with minimal acting skills or room to develop, It's hard to say what is intentional here, or if these people can act beyond dialogue reading but it doesn't serve the overall flow.
Overall, this isn't a real short film as much as it isn't a real film: It's student work, a proof of concept that pretends its a real short film. And quite honestly, for the parts I enjoyed: Being very Lovecraft, paranoia plot in a small ship, the waking up sequence, and how they used their cheap but appropriate effects, I do hope it gets picked up to be reworked into a full feature film with more talented and experience cast, production crew and others to guide it through. But as it is now, I can only recommend it for people to see out of curiosity.
The Trust (2016)
Two cops stumble on a heist opportunity of a life time - the ending doesn't translate well
Two cops stumble on a heist opportunity of a life time. Equipped with loose morality the dynamic duo decide to follow the trail of leads to discover a hidden safe room. They hatch a plan, get the equipment required and commit to a daring heist. During the preparation and events Waters (Wood) becomes increasingly aware of Stones (Cage) unpredictability and erratic behavior.
That is the premise and that's where it starts to go the wrong way, both in the movie and for the movie. While everyone on set does a pretty good job, the payoff escapes just in the final moments of the film. Overall it's a well made small budget movie but it just fails to deliver the promise of most of its run time, and leaves a more sour taste than a regular 'bad ending'-type movie would due to it's choices.
Mostly because people think they are watching a different movie. One of the problems is that Cage's character is just too likeable, Yes, he acts quirky and is dangerous but for Waters (Wood) to do what he does in the end, he needed to be terrifying to feel justified from the characters perspective to viewers. The tone is wrong. What is being sold is a dark humor buddy cop movie but it would have worked better with a serious, 'Training Day' type, menacing tone.
The key element, that is in the name "The Trust", meaning both the funds in the safe they plan to rob and the trust between two conflicting characters doesn't get to play out as well as it should.
For some reason this movie also decided to include a shot in the end to show that the woman survives the incident which I'm also really baffled about. Why? That scene could have ended with Waters fate, cut straight to epilogue. Why are we suddenly pretending she's a main character for that shot alone? Because of lack of strong female characters or something?
The ending itself isn't complicated though some claim so. What they hit turned out be a massive Cartel operations diamond vault, the woman was in on it the whole time possible even a figure head of said Cartel (due to the dumb truck scene), just playing dumb for Waters. Waters, who was supposed to be the straight man of the story just freaked out and got a conscience spike from the thought of killing an "innocent" woman and blows everything up for himself and his partner and tries to get away from them by not stealing the diamonds and trying to hide somewhere. This is of course foiled by his earlier compassion towards the women as she used her phone call to notify backup. In the end, the great dream, the great opportunity ends up as their demise and the traces of it end up in the storage of their former workplace as just another tale, just another evidence. It's really that simple.
Overall it's a competent movie, just not the kind you'd really want see again or put high on your to-watch list.