Division 19 (2017) User Reviews

Repetition and monotony

[duane-estilette · 3/10 · 4 May 2019]

Entirely too many scenes of the actors just staring into the distance apparanty to fill the time lost from lack of content. Repetitive scenes of people just walking. The idea behind the movie was solid, but the direction was terribly lacking. Hopefully a more skilled director will take the idea and present us with a version that won't make me demand that the money I spent on the rental be returned. I gave the movie a three rating because there was obviously some effort involved. Don't judge a movie by it's trailer.

Big ideas, needs better execution

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 3 April 2019]

Sometime in the very near future, prisons have become online portals where paying subscribers vote on what felons eat, watch, wear and who they fight. This is Panopticon TV and it's so successful that it's about to become a franchise. However, the most downloaded felon - pretty much a rock star - has escaped and the authorities want to bring him back in. And they're willing to do anything it takes, even arrest his little brother.

Director S.A. Halewood is determined to get the most out of her low budget, but so much of this movie feels like another I've seen before, whether those movies are The Running Man, Gamer or District 9. There's also a moment where someone is smoking and a drone says, "Smoking is not permitted in the street. You have ten seconds..." and I was waiting for it to end with "to comply" to finish this riff on Demolition Man.

Nielsen (Alison Doody from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) leads Panopticon and she's aided and abetted by Premier Lyndon, the COO of Central Control and pretty much the world leader. He's played by Linus Roache who was such a great bad guy in Mandy. Clarke Peters is also pretty decent as a tech guru who removes our hero's double neck implants, showing off his acting chops from Treme and The Wire.

They got to battle with hackers and influencers and people spouting all manner of technobabble through the streets of Detroit, which obviously RoboCop will forever be right about, even if so much of it was shot in Pittsburgh.

There are some big ideas here. The story may suffer and it may feel like movies that came before, but it certainly looks nice in parts. It's a great start, really. Hopefully, things get better from this crew of filmmakers from here.

An honest review

[Top_Dawg_Critic · 4/10 · 8 April 2019]

I had a really hard time staying awake for this mess of a film.

The first 1/4 of the film was decent enough to suck you in, but then it was just random dumb camera shots (literally, 5 second scenes jumping all over the place - to no where) and some decent (but useless) Parkour acrobatics.

Clearly the concept was taken from many other films, but I didn't care about that. What bothered me was writer/director/producer Suzie Halewood's poor attempt to create a decent story/screenplay. It almost seems like of the 5 hours total of decent filming, it was edited down to random 5-10 second scenes that were repetitive and ended up no where. Major plot issues with lack of any real story, and even worse dialogue. How do two brothers meet again after 10 years, have a one-sided 5 second conversation about nothing, then onto the next scene? Jamie Draven as Harden needed much more dialogue, instead of all these irrelevant scenes on buildings.

I get this was a low budget film, and I really enjoyed the low budget effects, but the problem here is the very amateurish writing and terrible screenplay with useless scenes, jumping in and out of nowhere. Halewood's directing behind the camera was not bad, but her editing the film to its final cut was atrocious. A 5th grader could've written a more solid story.

Nevertheless, ignore the clearly fake 8-10/10 reviews. This film had a great opportunity that Halewood blew trying to wear all these hats. It's a 4/10 from me, strictly for the decent low budget effects and the acting.

No action, bad dialogue, shallow characters

[tannerhess · 1/10 · 1 July 2019]

I will only recommend this movie for good background noise. The dialogue is repetitive, bland, and short with no real point in what is being said. The characters are shallow. The beginning of the movie establishes a story the entire rest of the film does not follow in a very bad, poorly thought-out way. This film is an hour-and-a-half of a couple characters standing in different locations, and that's it.

Truly a waste of time

[jhoward-85324 · 1/10 · 16 May 2019]

IMDB isn't the only site plagued by fake reviews, but they need to get a handle on them.

If I spend $30 for a sub-par phone charger then I get my phone charged intermittently, and maybe I return it.

If I invest 2 hours in a movie that is incoherent, repetitive, and pointless, I just wasted 2 hours. No value whatsoever and I can't get my time back.

This movie is horrible. 7.7 reviews when I queued to watch and now under 4. It deserves a 1-2 rating. This movie is the cinematic equivalent of melatonin.

Unmitigated garbage!

[roberta-615-943811 · 1/10 · 14 July 2019]

The concept of the movie was very interesting. Prisoners are filmed, and subscribers see live interactions between felons. You can buy a subscription to an individual felon. Sadly, the directing and screenplay did not live up to my very low expectations (due to Redbox reviews). Scenes didn't make sense. The lead actor maybe had a dozen lines. From scene to scene the story and shots were disjointed.

I only recommend watching this movie as a drinking game. Drink whenever a scene makes no sense. Drink when the Hardin says a word. Drink when they camera shifts points of view for no reason.

So awful. Worst movie I've seen in 20 years.

Fake reviews? Watching paint dry would have beeen better...

[johndow-48415 · 1/10 · 7 April 2019]

After reading some of the reviews here, I thought I was in for a treat. This turned out to be a huge disappointment, not even sure what the point of this movie was. By the end of it, I had no idea what the hell i was watching anymore. Total waste of 90min.

Great Idea, Poor Execution

[lennybuttz · 3/10 · 7 April 2019]

The poster and description of this movie caused me to think I was going to see something exciting. Nothing could be further from the truth. The description of the movie being about citizens watching inmates on TV is accurate it's also really boring. The whole movie is boring, It's like they all took acting lessons from William Shatner, say 1 word, pause for 3 seconds say another word, pause for 5 seconds say a word, stop talking for 5 minutes and look like you're thinking about what to say next then walk away.

They had a good story, actually they had a couple of good stories in this show but they chose not to go with them. I had the impression the writers were sitting in a circle in Forman's smoke filled basement coming up with all these great ideas which they forgot about when they came to their senses and they went with something really mundane instead.

Science Fiction? I would not call this science fiction it's bare more advanced that what we have today, in fact I think all the technology in the movie is available today it just isn't being used yet, or is it?

I liked all the actors, but it was confusing I didn't recognize any of the names but the faces looked familiar. I thought Nash was Ryan Gosling, he looked and sounded just like Ryan. I watched it all the way through hoping for something relevant to happen, TBH I was playing a game on my kindle for most of the movie and just listened to it because it moved so slowly.

It looks like a big budget movie but the story wasn't there. The dialogue what there was of it was good there just wasn't enough. Remember when writers used to be able to fill time with dialogue to keep you entertained and intrigued? Today's writers are lazy and just aren't producing enough words and the actors stand around looking brain dead.

I can't recommend this movie unless if you're looking for something to play in the background while you sleep, then it's perfect.

I want back my 90 minutes

[mr-kent · 2/10 · 7 April 2019]

Trailer looked promising, expected high action combined with an interesting idea. What I ended up with was waiting the entire movie for decent action to begin and for the villains to get some justice, neither of which were satisfactory! Save your time and watch another movie with a similar idea like Gamer or Desth Race (Number one that is).

World's Biggest Brand

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 4 July 2019]

In 2039 it is illegal to live off of the grid. I am not sure what happened to the Amish and the First Amendment. There is a group in District 19 that live off the grid and can hack into systems and raise havoc for those in power. Hardin Jones (Jamie Draven) is in prison and is being watched as a reality TV celebrity and he does not know it. While being transferred to New Town, a sort of half way town, a Seahaven Island for Truman, he is broken out by parkour anarchists.

The characters were not great. The dialogue was dry. I imagine there was some "1984" message in all of this, or maybe celebrity consumerism. Frankly I would rather be part of the consumer grid as the alternative didn't look like utopia to me.

Guide: F-word. Brief sex. Brief partial nudity.

Grungy state controlled dystopia... fight back...

[asnet-34950 · 8/10 · 7 March 2017]

I was lucky to catch an early cut of this film at Fantasporto Film Festival 2017 (Critics' Award winner); more a grungy future dystopia than pure fantasy, the film centers around the state's monetization of the penal system while the world around it collapses. A moralistic tale that asks you to work out the morality; opposed to the so too often spoon feeding that we see. This can leave you trying to work out what is going on at times but the film itself is beautiful to look at. Shot in Detroit, London and New York the cities have been blended together like the 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera to create a familiar but non-specific backdrop. Division 19 is an independently produced film but feels like a big budget feature.

The story revolves around two brothers, Hardin Jones (Jamie Draven) who languishes in jail while the state has turned his life into a Trumanesque TV show, and younger brother Nash Jones (Will Rothhaar), leader of a band of hacker revolutionaries who plan to bring down the State. The ensuing battle sees the aging State pitted against a brash, youthful movement that wont take any more.

Timely dystopian film

[jgoodman-la · 7/10 · 12 April 2019]

This is a stylish, timely, dystopian film about where we may be heading. It's set in a future with the surveillance state watching over all, and "reality" television taken to the logical limit. How much time is left before that's our world?

Absolutely terrible

[josenelias · 2/10 · 12 December 2019]

This was bad. The long shots of actors faces staring into the emptiness, trying to convey emotion and a sense of introspective feeling wears out really quickly as soon as they become too frequent. Also long shots of empty streets or random people roaming around streets used to often also kills the mood because they become repetitive. Since there was little story to be told I guess they had to try to make the movie longer. The base idea, not being extraordinary, wasn't completely bad, but the way it was executed was very poor and maybe I was shutting down but some things were missing or didn't make total sense. The overall acting was also bad.

Disjointed rubbish. V disappointed

[lopezpatricia-06139 · 1/10 · 25 September 2019]

OMG DID YOU SEE THEM USING A 2010 MACBOOK IN 2039!!! Was poised to receive a great action / sci fi film but no.. every scene blends into the next without the previous one being explained. It's incredible slow. Incredibly irritating for the previous scene not to be explained. The people who cut the trailer together owe me money as was led to believe this was a fast paced slick futuristic flick.

Could've been great

[dieseldog-42932 · 3/10 · 30 April 2019]

This movie had a great story and really good actors. What happened? There was no urgency in the chase. No suspense. if you have a chip they can trace do you sit in the same spot all night? The government has absolute control electronically but can't find you with said chip? Most of the movie is the subject sitting, staring and some walking. It could've been urgent chasing and barely escaping. It felt like much was left out or not bothered with. I'm 44 min in and I felt the need to stop and vent. The only reason I might continue is the fact that I'm already halfway through. I just don't get the gist of this movie at all. Nothing is happening with any sort of purpose.

The dumbest movie I've ever seen

[soupychang · 1/10 · 16 February 2020]

The plot starts out fairly well, a little cheesy but interesting. Then nothing interesting ever happens. Characters will randomly show up in new settings with no explanation of how they got there or why. There's no climax or character development of any kind. A real toot sandwich. Also notice a lot of the good reviews are from the same account.

Dull.

[alistairc_2000 · 2/10 · 11 June 2022]

It is a great idea. Watch prisoners 24/7 for a subscription, dehumanizing them. That is what it says it is about. It starts off like it is going to be about that then goes off at a very boring tangent. It is only worth watching if you need something to send you to sleep.

Film as Experience

[johnaxness · 8/10 · 6 April 2019]

Mesmerizing and emotional journey through our not too distant dystopian future.

Worried about Facebook etc commodifying your likes? You should be!

[KinLA · 7/10 · 28 March 2019]

Set in the near future, a smart thriller follows teenage Robin Hoods attempting to change the world and save one of their own.

If you thought it couldn't happen to you....

[C_Brand · 7/10 · 16 April 2019]

A look at a bleak future where anonymity is a crime, data a commodity and all who take on the state are publicly ruined or dispatched to an outside world to live on scraps. Every element is what is happening now but twenty years hence. So bets placed on prison fights become the online phenomenon Panopticon TV where subscribers can 'adopt a felon' and a crumbling health service is reduced to rusty ATM machines that dole out medicare. Just how can a citizen defend themselves when the data-miners know their every move and preference? This is Julian Assange territory, where the State may be a crypto a dinosaur, but still has enough tricks up its sleeve to prevail and the numbers of downtrodden, inactive enough to change nothing. The message is clear: We could all end up trapped in the belly of this techno beast. the choice is still ours. Just not for long.

Provocative, anarchic and original

[andyhalewood-03745 · 9/10 · 6 April 2019]

Division 19 presents a grim forecast of the logical outcome of capitalism: a world of conformity and commerce within a united totalitarian state. In this world technology is controlled by key individuals and organisations, all US-based, who use their power to manipulate and control. As such the film shares the premise of Huxley's Brave New World - that capitalism is taking us down the road to uniformity and the loss of individual liberty. Filmed (appropriately) in bankrupt Detroit; Division 19 lays bare the misery of a community in decline: urban decay, unemployment, poverty and violent crime. The downtown streets are eerily empty, the shops desolate, homes abandoned and dilapidated; what little community there is exists on the outskirts of the city.

The central character, Hardin Jones, is a particularly valuable commodity to the state. Every aspect of his dismal life inside a high security prison is screened 24/7 on Panopticon TV - an interactive television and marketing channel. Whatever Hardin 'chooses' goes viral, from sunglasses to designer jeans. However, while inside the prison there is no freedom of movement, outside the prison there is little freedom of thought; within the commercial zone citizens are subjected to a seemingly never-ending stream of mind-numbing marketing and interactive light entertainment. Big Brother is watching and trading hard. Into this nightmarish dystopia enter a group of fresh-faced parkour anarchists who hack into the machinery of the state and use this technology to challenge the corruption at the heart of it. Their demands are radical and utopian: essentially an end to investment banking and state control. Their second aim is to spring Hardin from prison, for amongst this group of computer geeks is Nash, Hardin's brother; the brother Hardin lost his liberty trying to save. There is no evidence of Nash on The National Register; no fingerprints, no iris-scan, no DNA, no address, no bank details, no loyalty cards, no credit, no voting history. While an unsuspecting Hardin is intimately known to everyone in the city via Panopticon TV, Nash has effectively disappeared. The struggles of both brothers to free themselves from the reach of a dehumanising state forms the central thrust of the story.

Division 19 is a great-looking film; the wide vistas of a bleak and barren landscape mirror the alienation of the state and the actors within it. And the performances are psychologically intelligent: Jamie Draven plays the traumatised, sedated and institutionalised Hardin convincingly by underplaying the role and Alison Doody is utterly convincing as polished psychopathic prison director Neilson who is so emotionally disconnected that she sees prisoners as objects to be manipulated, programmed and branded.

Appropriately Division 19 is not a film which encourages passive consumption; it requires sustained attention from the viewer. Yet while the twists and turns of the complex plot are at times somewhat hard to follow Division 19 makes the point brilliantly that in a capitalist technoculture we are all prisoners and that redemption lies both in our ability to question and resist the state, and in our bonds and loyalties to others. A timely parable.

How the future will unravel

[franceskelsey · 7/10 · 17 February 2022]

Judging by some of the reviews, the film is somewhat of an IQ test. Not for the spoon-fed, the film (which isn't technically a sci-fi) looks at a future which turns out to be increasingly like our present. Everybody is watched, logged, owned by the state. The three storylines seem to cover what it's like to be trapped by the state (Jamie Draven), what you can do to escape the state (Toby Hemingway) and how the state copes with the threat of a parallel, decentralised structure (Linus Roache/Alison Doody). Yes, it may take a couple of viewings to fully get the message, but as a study in what the future could look like unless we get a grip of it both financially and in regard to surveillance, it is at least intelligent take on our relationship to our 'democratic' world, even if the message is sometimes given priority to the characters. In real life, being merely a pawn is something to avoid. Those more used to fantastical storylines such as accountants morphing instantaneously into martial arts experts, may not take kindly to characters who are almost powerless to the will of the state.

A call to arms ... or consoles

[McMurphy-45326 · 8/10 · 29 March 2019]

Hardin Jones (Jamie Draven) is the star of Panopticon TV, a live online portal accessing the prison system that invites subscribers to vote on and sometimes control the 'choices' of felons. It's Big Brother gone mad. After 10 years of this brutal existence, Hardin is ill-equipped to survive on the outside, but that's where he finds himself after being sprung from jail by a posse of hooded cyber-bandits.

Writer-director SA Halewood presents a dystopian world in which hospitals have been replaced by ATM-style medication dispensers, and robots - programmed by humans - have developed mental-health issues. Don't laugh; it could happen. There are no jobs; citizens sell organs online to survive. And with Hardin's face on every screen in the city via a 24-hour advertising loop, there is nowhere for him to hide.

But all is not lost. Hardin's younger brother Nash (Will Rothhaar) has refused to embrace The System. He and his fellow roof-dwellers (the Gilet Jaunes of 2039) threaten to hack into banks, close down the power grid and interrupt satellites if their demands -an end to the curfew and mandatory tagging - are not met. While the creator of Panopticon TV Neilsen (Alison Doody) yearns for the return of her golden goose Hardin, President Lyndon (Linus Roache) has a more measured approach, listening to the demands of the Gilet Jaunes - not least because they appear to be winning over the electorate.

It has to be said that Halewood's thesis, that modern technology enables the state to crush and commody the individual, is timely. In effect, Hardin represents most of us, the acquiescent, while his brother personifies individuality, dignity and freedom.

DIVISION 19 is well-crafted, powerfully acted, and hums with contemporary resonance. It asks a lot of its audience, but then that's the film's point. What are we and where are we heading, if we don't think for ourselves?

Running Man meets social media.

[crishockman · 6/10 · 18 May 2020]

It's worth watching for Linus, lacks a certain I don't know quoi.

Timely dystopia

[jbaverstam · 10/10 · 6 March 2018]

Set in a not-so-distant future dystopia, this gripping film carries the viewer along at a mesmerizing rhythmic pace almost like a piece of music. Then come the sudden jolts of recognition - this could be like us now, this could be what we are becoming. Reality TV run by the state and taken to new extremes, where prisoners are the celebrities and the number of views they garner from round-the-clock public surveillance cameras feeds a pervasive propaganda and advertising machine. Huge display screens on building facades throughout the city and loudspeakers make it impossible to ignore the chosen prisoner idol. The public is meant to live vicariously through his choices and to vote on his fate.

The visuals are stunning and imaginative, the acting is fresh and real. Other scenes in the film take place at a secret off-the-grid commune for societal escapees, smoldering favela-towns, as they are called in the film, filled with scavenging drifters. A behind-the-scenes control room is where we watch the powerful few who control surveillance and broadcasting, and by extension the citizenry at large, hash out their differences. Subtleties in human motivations do not clearly differentiate good people from bad. A network of revolting tech-savvy youth is threatening the existing order. It is a post-apocalyptic world that looks a lot like our current images of war and destruction.