One Way - Hell of A Ride

That's two mediocre Kevin Bacon movies in a row for me... he was great in both, the rest of the cast, not so much. The story, directing and editing was pretty b-level. I hope this isn't a dip/end to his career that has him doing "whatever" comes his way, just for money. Again, he looked great, the overall movie was just not good. I thought he was going to be a main player in the movie, he ends up on the short end. Not great for an actor that was as good as he was for as long. Hopefully he does a better job vetting the scripts that he decides to film going forward. I usually love what he does, I'd hate to see him go out on a sour note.

To be honest, this somewhat exceeded my expectations. I thought this was going to be a total stinker, (it had the Bruce Willis vibe to the description and box cover). Knowing that Bacon was just going to be a side character for small scenes, perhaps my bar was set so low going into it that it actually didn't seem too bad. The all-around solid acting made up for many shortcomings on the technical side. Acting and actor restraint good if not great. Script pretty decent, but the technical side could have been better. By that I mean the runtime was a bit long per the total content and plot devices. In other words, it was a reeeeally long bus ride and a bit too much cell phone talking. "Action" on electronic devices (computers, tablets, phones, etc) is boring, but this didn't cross that line completely. Also, the camerawork seemed amateurish. Focal games, blurring, cascading, and finally the dreaded shaky/bouncing cam that rarely locks onto a still frame so you can focus on it. In summary, I think it was as good as it could have been for what was written, with the technical and editing work holding it back.

Lets start off by stating the obvious -- clearly Andrew Baird has found a way to avoid the sales agents pretending to be film makers curse and has created ACTUAL films. Now they are flawed "Zone414" and now "One Way" but at least they are competent films! MGK was great in The Dirt and Verve with Franco so im not sure why everyone is shocked that he can act -- I'm not sure what to make of reviewers anymore there people who tell you that you cant rate a film higher than a 3 because thats what they KNOW and then there are those rating it a 10 because people gave it a "1" so I believe in general if a film is technically sound -- has a decent story -- is acted well then we should start with a 5 -- the rest is how it made you feel -- was it original and was it memorable...on those factors I grade 1 for memorable -- The images of the bus and some of the characters sticks with you once the film is done and thats the sign of a good film. So not getting into the spoilers of this movie but its a good watch --

A guy is on a bus, making phone calls. There is a lot of tension, people in the bus that somehow get involved, he sitting around people that can hear him call in a bus that is totally empty, and a lot of people answering the calls. That's the whole movie.

I guess the film was constructed as an actor vehicle for Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly). Pun not intended, even if the entire film is happening on a bus. I can't say the acting or direction were particularly bad, but the film was a snooze fest with no characterization at all. I mean, the bland overused cliché of someone stealing money and coke from dangerous criminals doesn't arouse interest, especially if you care nothing for what happens to any of the people in the film. Add to this the limited background of the action and you get something really boring.

I haven't watched Phone Booth, but I heard of it when deciding not to watch it. If I knew this film was in the same vein, I wouldn't have watched it either.

Bottom line: only watch it if you like Machine Gun Kelly, as both Kevin Bacon and Travis Fimmel are supporting actors with little screen time.

Ngl, MGK, has earned my respect as an actor in this film. He literally held his own alongside icons Kevin Bacon and Travis Fimmel. For that matter, all casting and performances were convincing and excellent, especially Storm Reid and Luis Da Silva Jr., with only Drea de Matteo being too cliched and unconvincing as the gang leader.

Even the score for a low budget B film was on point. The cinematography however, had some issues, specifically being too dark in most of the bus scenes, and the garbled out of focus and shaky cam shots. Although a creative conceptual story with some decent twists, the writing suffered some plot and technical issues, and had too much filler for the little substance to effectively fill in the slowly paced 95 min runtime. The story had decent continuity, but also had some convoluted scenes and dialog. The ending was confusing; was it trying to be smart, or was it just convoluted. Even the constant conversations with Freddy's "conscience(?)" felt amateurish and out of place, and the cheesy directing and slow-mo and blurred shots got annoying pretty quick.

This film needed more dramatic and suspenseful content and/or a shorter runtime. All the filler added in just dragged out the film and should've been edited out, and perhaps add more needed character background and development. It's too bad this film has so many rookie-filmmaker mistakes, because with the awesome casting and performances and great conceptual story, it easily had the potential to be a great thriller. Still, a well deserved 6/10 from me for Baker's impressive performance next to two great actors.