Devious Beings

Chris Mazzei's Devious Beings turns on itself like a Moebius strip-the story arc is actually a series of orbits. Think of each character as an electron circling a dense nucleus in which self- preservation vibrates the whole. All the performances are strong and discrete-Mazzei somehow manages to navigate his actors through a complex, violent landscape that's dark all day long. It's not absolutely perfect, but he takes two or three movies worth of typical Hollywood clichés and stacks them with both style and skill. Andre B. Blake is the conflicted protagonist who plays and gets paid, but Robert Gossett is the main reason to check out this movie. His performance as the villain Damone is diabolical.