When watching no budget, or extremely low budget, genre films one should expect to see a film that's rough around the edges, that is severely limited in what it can accomplish visually, and that must rely on actors who are not as experienced or as talented as they are simply enthusiastic and willing. One must overlook these flaws - to some degree - and instead focus on what the filmmakers attempt DESPITE the limitations. Most filmmakers seemingly never even try, or don't care, or perhaps just lack the talent to achieve anything other than "getting it done". The Empty Acre falls squarely in that rare category of a film that struggles to be a serious contender. There is thought and intent and a certain level of creativity behind the choices and the decisions the writer/director made (I absolutely loved the use of simple elongated shadow effects) and I have to applaud those while at the same time acknowledging that the film stumbles and fails on many levels regardless. If you are willing to cut it some slack and give it a chance the film rewards with an interesting premise, some effective visuals, and actors who are valiantly giving their best. Sadly the premise is never developed effectively. The screenplay is structured in such a fashion that huge parts of it seem to be missing (like the entire introduction to the "empty acre"). Characters don't always communicate like believable human beings in the situations they find themselves in. Even in scenes that are meant to establish the more mundane or unexceptional nature of the characters lives, they should still be interesting and insightful; unfortunately it feels like once the writer knew he wanted such a scene (which is brave enough in a genre film) he had no idea how to add the interest or insight. The scene just exists. Too much of the film just "sits there" in the execution. And there is an over reliance on editing tricks which might have been necessitated by problems during shooting or with the quality of finished scenes, but ultimately becomes simply distracting and pushes the audience away from the film instead of bringing them in to it. Yes, it can be wonderful all the tools available to the digital editor, but that doesn't mean you have to use them all at the same time. And despite all the editing, editing, editing going on the films pace is poor from the outset and endlessly cutting to overused footage of cracked earth doesn't help in the least. Once or twice is eerie but by the three thousandth time it's simply boring and feels like visual padding.
Although it never fulfilled on it's promise, and on several occasions was a struggle to get through, I still think it's worthwhile watching the product of filmmakers who are at least trying to create something original regardless of their limitations. With a better developed script (and a less "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" approach to editing) I wouldn't mind seeing what the filmmaker could accomplish in the future.
