Rogue Elements: A Ryan Drake Story

Overall it was an enjoyable watch if you like fight scenes. It is not a complete story and if you haven't read the books you might be lost. Except for the Ryan character, most of the acting was not up to snuff. Some of the dialogue was stilted and cheesy. Overall this feels like a bunch of guys wanted to make a fighting and shooting short and here's nothing wrong with that! TBH I guess I had the expectation of an actual complete story seeing how it is the Drinker. But that's my fault. My expectations were subverted. The cinematography, coloring, and music are really good. The sound design was mostly good. The music mix was too loud and some of the atmosphere foley was wonky and amateurish. All of the gun sounds and fight sound design were great. The after credit scene with the Drinker at the end was hilarious (probably my favorite scene in the film) but it was totally out of place for the feel of the piece. I hope the Drinker gets a chance to make a full film with a complete story that has character development, arcs, etc. Would love to see what he can do if he gets a say in what shows up on screen. 40 min plus is plenty of time to accomplish this BTW. There are plenty of short films that feel like a complete narrative that are half the length of this film.

This 'proof of concept' short film/pilot is a bit of a mess.

First up, the dialogue is bad, and the pacing is inconsistent. The music choices and editing adds no subtlety or tension as it is too bombastic, calling attention to itself. The acting varies between formulaic and atrocious. There are some interesting shots, peppered amongst the majority of generic ones. The story is not that gripping, and the lead role has been miscast, with an actor whose varying accent is his most interesting characteristic.

This is a film based on books by, and co-written by a YouTuber of some renown, Will Jordan, a.k.a. The Critical Drinker, so I was surprised and disappointed at the cliche level of dialogue and plot, given his reviews of movies, and his series of videos "the Drinker fixes". Although a lot of the responsibility for these things must also lie with the Director/Co-writer/Editor Travis Grant, as those three roles also play a pivotal part of how a film is made. While some of the fight scenes are okay, most of the pacing is slow, and the blocking/staging boring. More tension could have been added by giving characters things to do, putting them in motion as they speak the exposition necessary to set up the world this story takes place. Things like have the character who is supposed to speak Russian/Estonian actually speak Russian or Estonian to the guards, and not badly accented English. But mainly establish the main character earlier, as well as make him the one the audience wants to watch.

This 40 minute film had a budget of over $300,000, and many clever, inventive, independent feature films have been made for this level of money or less like Clerks, Open Water, Once, Pi, She's Gotta Have It, The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, and one of my favourites - El Mariachi, which had action and gun play.

I found this effort disappointing, and a missed opportunity with a budget not well spent.

I'm a big fan of the Drinker as a critic. I could never really get into his writing as much, and this concept piece illustrates why for me.

Don't misunderstand to title, there's some fun to be had with some of the scenes, but the writing did not lend itself well to the direction it received, which resulted in a disconnect with any emotional investment the audience could have.

For all his talk, Will is not quite able to edit his dialogue down to something tight and concise. It's clear that he knows the story he wants to tell, simple and clear. Simple, indeed it is, but the word count that ended up on the paper did not reflect that.

For all the hullabaloo and self congratulatory behaviour surrounded this 'tv concept' thing, it was surprisingly dull affair.

Just a bland, generic special forces mission type thing that helps congest the daytime rota of those strange TV channels that constantly play low budget, low quality tripe.

It makes the Equaliser TV show with that ex rapper look almost like Shakespeare and let's be honest it's not a patch of the original show. I will be surprised if this ever makes it into anything else, be it on TV or the big screen. I believe that there is a series of books with the Nick Drake character, but honestly, I think I could pretty much have a good idea of all the plots going by this.

Rarely has a crowdfunded project more comprehensively dunked on the mugs who gave it money. But Rouge Elephants goes all-out to subvert expectations by displaying all of the very same tropes that its creator mercilessly mocks when he observes them in others:

An anodyne, anonymous John Guyman lead with no character or presence. I've watched this twice and still couldn't name one trait of Nothing Dork.

Pacing that opens with a mild bang then immediately slips into flashbacks, tell-don't-show, and even as-you-know exposition to pad out the run-time.

Not one but two girlbosses who perform ridiculous feats of combat, when they would be laid flat by the first hand put on them.

Dialogue that's stilted, cheesy, clumsy, interchangeable, repetitive and rambling.

An utterly generic plot that's so genre-compliant that surely it must qualify as parody.

Bear in mint that all this comes from a writer / producer who can recognise all the traits of a great indie production, and yet chooses to use absolutely none of them himself.

It's telling that not one of the creator's circle of content creators has reviewed this short, because there is literally nothing in it to praise, either objectively, or in comparison to any contemporary production like Terminal List or Reacher.

A creator with courage would do a "The Drinker Fixes: Rogue Elements", but we still await that moment of humility and self awareness.