2016-11-18

20161118: Action Review--Painkillers





Name: Painkillers (2015)
IMDb: link to Painkillers page

Genres: Action   Country of origin: USA.

Cast:
Tahmoh Penikett as Major John Cafferty, Erica Durance as Trudy, Leslie-Anne Brandt as Guts, Colm Feore as Dr Troutman, Julia Voth as Masters, Riza Santos as Madeline, Roger Leblanc as Talbott, Travis Friesen as Carlyle.

Directed by: Peter Winther.  Written by: Peter Winther, Kirk Roth, Jason Grace.

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
A small group of mercenaries goes on a tough mission.  They wake up in a medical facility, or so it seems.  They remember bits and snatches.  The staff members are supposed to help them recall.

Delineation of conflicts:
Majestic Global Dynamics (the ones impersonating a medical staff) wants an alien power source. The  mercenaries were sent to obtain it. They failed, supposedly, and the search object messed with their memories.  Majestic tries to get them to remember their mission.  Sure.

Resolution: The motives of all involved were questionable.  The betrayals seem endless, but the motivations were largely absent.

One line summary: Shabby amnesia story.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 5/10 There is so much poor CGI to go with the cheap sets.

Sound: 5/10 The dialog recorded fine, but the music seemed mostly discordant with the plot direction.

Acting: 3/10 Pretty poor, except perhaps for Colm Feore.

Screenplay: 1/10 This is a 15 minute story expanded out to 103 minutes.  The 15 minutes was not that good.

Final Rating: 2/10 What was the point of this film?

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