Tomato Red

I'm generally biased against American films and their lack of subtlety but think I would watch any independent film with Julia Garner in it, she's that good. I also really enjoyed the honesty of the main character in his acknowledgment of his position in life. Sometimes a narration in a film comes across cheesy, and it was at times - but it was paramount to the film that the marginalized be given a voice. The cinematography is stunning also.

A looser meets other loosers. They bond and they both continue to struggle through their daily looser lifes. That's basically the story about these young, poor Americans, who live in constant poverty and sorrow.

The good: acting is good, yet not above normal good. The time that is taken to get to know these poor loosers is nice as well. It gives a good portrait of every character.

The bad: lacking spark. It lasts an half hour too long at least. And there is no real chemistry between the leading actors, who do act decently, but nothing above barely decent. Dialogues are good, but the general storyline is not very credible at moments and not very thrilling either.

Not bad, simply lacking just that bit of extra. Therefore only 6 stars.

The title and poster led me to expect this to be a completely different film than it turned out to be, namely an action thriller, but actually it is Southern Gothic drama with some mild thriller elements. Now, this is not necessarily a problem for me personally because I am open to be surprised, but I wonder if this might have hurt the film's marketing.

The movie is competently executed and features passable acting, but I could just not get rid of a constant feeling of annoyance at watching one poor life choice after another, with practically no insight into the consequences, by several of the major characters, right up until just before the end of the movie. When, at that point-finally!-each of the three main characters attained an insight, it struck me as so profoundly cynical that I could not get myself to care about it.

I realize that this may very well be the point of the movie: to depict the grim lives of the bottom barrel of society, hopeless, with flawed moral systems and an inability of its members to find a way out of their situations, and where every poor choice is bound to both be punished more harshly than it deserves by society, and to serve as a prelude to further poor choices.

As far as what a drama could be about, it is actually a really good point. But when there is too much of that, then one eventually stops caring about the characters, and that is what happened to me here (except for the character of the mother, who did elicit some feelings of pity).

There is nowhere in Arkansas that looks like this. It was filmed in British Columbia. That was my first issue with this film. I was intrigued to watch by the named actors.

Great beginning, 1st Q. Then it draws to a pace that, as visually artistic as it is, and it is, it just goes too long without dialog and movement. Lulls to a crawl. Good sub plots although the main plot is fairly monotone. Then the ending is really just stalled on a big decision. Short resolution that never does tell us why.

Decent Music. Very Good actors. The three main of them grew from this, I would imagine.

It's the pace, for me.

Spectacular, is the only way to describe this "gem" of a Canadian movie. Though not sure how "Canadian" it is as mostly american and 1 british actors/actresses. Must be the money. Always follow the money : ( But still filmed in Canada, that counts for something (mostly tax credits, but what ever) Still is a very "great" movie. Lots of smoking (I'm a smoker, so I approve), and lots of quirky fun. How in the heck the Irish are involved I don't see, must be the money trail again. Capitalism soooo sucks : ( 10 out of 10 from me : )