Novice producer/writer/director Travis Milloy has created a visually stunning and entertaining indie film that is near perfection, considering it was funded with a Kickstarter campaign and stolen pop-crates (see Trivia section).
The directing, sound and visuals on this film are better than 95% of the Hollywood blockbusters out there, so bravo Travis for converting your vision into this masterpiece and hitting it out of the ball park.
I am not a fan of long films (unless the story justifies the length) and this one was just that, very long at 2h,23m, but sadly, the story did not justify the length. Had the pace been slow (thankfully it wasn't), it would have been unbearable.
With the repetitiveness of the plot, this film needed to be cut down to about 1h,30m to have made it more fluid, instead of feeling as if it was all over the place. I felt there were some unnecessary scenes that convoluted the main story, such as his father. I understand that this may have been symbolic, but it really didn't add much to the overall story.
Additionally there were some miss-mashed plot issues that could have easily been either omitted or covered better.
But the stunning cinematography/visuals paired with near perfect directing and outstanding score kept my eyes glued to the screen and made the above issues less significant. Even Christopher Soren Kelly's acting became more convincing and you started to feel for his character.
Some reviewers complained about the ending, but that for me was perfect, as it left it up to the viewer to come to their own conclusion. To me, I feel it left the door open for a Part 2, and I hope that does comes to fruition.
I am rating this film based on its own merits of a novice-produced, truly low budget independent film that hit the mark and excelled in the most critiqued areas, so as such, it's a very well deserved 9/10 from me.
The directing, sound and visuals on this film are better than 95% of the Hollywood blockbusters out there, so bravo Travis for converting your vision into this masterpiece and hitting it out of the ball park.
I am not a fan of long films (unless the story justifies the length) and this one was just that, very long at 2h,23m, but sadly, the story did not justify the length. Had the pace been slow (thankfully it wasn't), it would have been unbearable.
With the repetitiveness of the plot, this film needed to be cut down to about 1h,30m to have made it more fluid, instead of feeling as if it was all over the place. I felt there were some unnecessary scenes that convoluted the main story, such as his father. I understand that this may have been symbolic, but it really didn't add much to the overall story.
Additionally there were some miss-mashed plot issues that could have easily been either omitted or covered better.
But the stunning cinematography/visuals paired with near perfect directing and outstanding score kept my eyes glued to the screen and made the above issues less significant. Even Christopher Soren Kelly's acting became more convincing and you started to feel for his character.
Some reviewers complained about the ending, but that for me was perfect, as it left it up to the viewer to come to their own conclusion. To me, I feel it left the door open for a Part 2, and I hope that does comes to fruition.
I am rating this film based on its own merits of a novice-produced, truly low budget independent film that hit the mark and excelled in the most critiqued areas, so as such, it's a very well deserved 9/10 from me.