Losses

Having let down his "employer" a young man who has been trained as a killer is confronted by his financier. The man behind the money is wondering whether or not to just cut his losses and let his "investment" expire rather than continuing to throw good money after bad. The investment has just 5 minutes to justify continuing.

Clever little short film this because with very little explanation it sets up 5 minutes of action with a ticking clock in the background and as a result we get the potential for a punchy action reel which is what the film is going for. Owing a massive debt to the Bourne movies, the short tries to have that same sense of pace and frantic movement in the action sequences and mostly it pulls it off. The action stuff is roundly good and very well filmed considering the constraint of budget and equipment. It never totally shakes of the feeling of a group of action-movie fans got together to do it themselves, but it does feel pretty professional.

It does fall a little short though in a number of ways. One is that, because it is so close to the style of the Bourne films, it is hard not to compare and contrast while watching and of course this comes up short in regards how well edited and filmed those fight scenes are; a minor quibble perhaps, but it was in my head throughout that it was just lacking that final something. The bigger limitation is with the cast, I'm guessing none are professional actors because they all have an air of cheapness about them. Bruno's Boss is the most obvious – he is a little obvious and hammy in his performance, lacking presence and doesn't really convince. His last line is also poor (I would have preferred he hint at more above him) and he doesn't sell his character – limitation of the man perhaps, but it does hurt the character. Likewise Connolly is "close but no cigar" in terms of filling the lead role – the action stuff he does well, but he doesn't convince me as the character he plays and, although good, he just didn't fill the screen as I would have liked. The various hired thugs are OK but mostly fodder.

That said the film does still work despite these limitations and makes for an enjoyable action short even if it does have room for polish and improvement in areas.

A lesson of cinematography more than an action short film. Admirable plot and fight scenes and solutions for a low budget film. And inspired use of conventions of genre. A beautiful action film. Or just a correct lesson about the genre.

Knowing Ryan Connolly and his filmmaking channel which includes tips and tricks for low-budget filmmaking, I expected this to be a solid action movie in the very least.

Ryan Connolly has gone above and beyond the call of duty for this film. What came out of it was a well-composed, excellently written short film that I'm sure Ryan himself must be very proud of. I think that the plot line is very clever, and I didn't really have problems with lack of character development - I thought the immediate burst into the action got me quickly endorsed in the film, though I would have preferred something perhaps more unique in how the film began, though it was still a very effective start. Bruno's bursts of anger were done well; I liked the way one minute he'd be calm and the other he'd be fuming.

With that in mind, I was impressed by the acting from Josh Connolly, but I thought he looked a bit young for some guy trained to kill. As for the other "Hit men" their acting was OK, but to be honest they weren't really dressed properly, an issue pointed out by Connolly himself.

Special effects were great; I had no problem with the way everything was done and they really gave interest to the already well-colour graded and shot piece. The action (fight scenes mainly) was excellently composed and the choreography was some of the best I've seen.

Overall, the only problems for me were some of the acting, the costumes, and I felt that at times I found myself pop-out of my endorsement in the movie because of reasons like the pace of the action which at times got somewhat slow. However, this was very well done in the long run and I was very impressed by the quality of the great short film. Worth a watch? Definitely. It's free.