20140609: Movie Review--Evidence

Evidence

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, NR, 93 minutes, crime-thriller, drama, failure.
2. IMDB: 5.2/10.0 from 3,121 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 6% on the meter; 25% liked it from 475 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from  65,218 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi; written by John Swetman.
6. Starring: Steven Moyer as Detective Reese, Radha Mitchell as Detective Burquez, Torrey DeVitto as Leanne, Caitlin Stasey as Rachel, Nolan Gerard Funk as Tyler Norris, Dale Dickey as Katrina Fleishman, Aml Ameen as Officer Jenson, Svetlana Metkina as Vicki, Barak Hardley as Gabe Wright, Harry Lennix as Ben.


2. Setup and Plot


1. The film opens to an overview of a crime scene.  The visuals are impressive, in a way; that is, a lot of effort was taken to produce an amateurish result.  In this director's approach, good visuals have to be accompanied by plodding boredom, while shaky cam, cell phone footage, and pixelated, blurred images are where the action and interest should be kept.


2. We segue to a police department, where the evidence has been collected and sorted to a degree. The personnel to evaluate the evidence gets picked.


3. The investigatory group consists of Detectives Reese and Burquez, Officer Jensen, and AV specialist Gabe Wright. They set about analysing the 'found film' from Rachel's camera, plus the visuals recorded by cell phones, plus the overviews from the beginning of the film.  Close consideration yields some clues for the Detectives to pursue.


4. Amateur director Rachel likes to film 'incredibly uncomfortable things.'  Indeed.  Leanne is in a troubled relationship with Tyler Norris, who is a mediocre singer and less than good guitar player.  Rachel decides to film Leanne 'before she was a big star.'  We also have the badness of hand-held cameras.  This includes horrible framing, rotten sound leveling, extraneous sounds, and large time gaps.


5. Rachel, Leanne, Tyler, Vicki, and a young entertainer are scheduled to take a trip to Las Vegas.  Though not on the passenger manifest, Katrina gets on the tour bus as well.  She has a huge amount of cash on her, and might be a fugitive.  When Tyler and Rachel notice that they are on a side road, Rachel goes to talk to the driver.  Things go decidedly bad after that, including the bus crashing.


6. The film progresses to the retelling of the deaths and the unveiling of the perpetrators.  How does that play out?


3. Conclusions
1. Rotten Tomatoes got the rating correct; Netflix missed by a mile.
2. One line summary: Two movies in one; neither one very good.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 1/10 Shaky camera work.  Stupid framing angles.  Dropped frames, severe pixelation.  Insufficient light, heat-damaged memory chips.


2. Sound: 4/10 Speech is mostly comprehensible, but there is plenty of raw microphone noise, such as when cell phones are dragged on the floor while recording.


3. Acting: 2/10 Stephen Moyer had a couple of good moments in this film; Harry Lennix is his usual reliable self.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 After watching this, I will avoid properties directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, or written by John Swetman.  For a better film about lesbian criminals, see Breaking the Girls (2013), Monster (2003), or Bound (1996).  The 'twist' at the end is cliche, done before and done better.