Christopher Nolan has influenced a trove of ambitious filmmakers from London to Sydney to L. A. The Alamo City is no stranger to crime or to the filmmakers who crave to comment on it. Nolan is a busy man, crafting some of the biggest and most important hits in Hollywood history, but if he had a Texas minute, he would smirk with influence and appreciation for a short film conceived by San Antonio based writer/director Robert Cantu.
Cantu, like Nolan, refuses to be bound by time or the binds of color, using black and white to his advantage just as Nolan has (Following, parts of Memento). Homicidal Crimes brings a rusty quality to the characters and the tableau that the director finds. This is not your 1940's film noir. Modern day detectives must track down a killer in a logical, linear fashion. But the audience isn't afforded the same way to process the narrative. The detectives, like Scully and Mulder, bring an intellectual approach to hunting the hunter.
Detective Salazar (Karina Carielo) is in charge of everything but her temper, and Detective Anderson (Scotty Walker) is the voice of reason in a town in which reason seems a relic of the past.
Jason C Campbell as Jack Kimo leaps off the screen as the man we love to hate. We are not quite sure who is angrier at the dark world of Alamo City, Detective Salazar or Kimo. Another candidate for anger management sessions is Captain Eschenburg played by charismatic Mike Dell. With an authoritative voice and presence, one just thanks fate that he was never a grade school teacher of yours or mine.
The acting in this short film is subtle enough to be believed, and intense enough to grab attention.
The brightest star of the film is the imaginative narrative style presented by Robert Cantu. We watch back and forth, trying to figure out how enforcement makes an unsafe city safer.
In a crucial scene, Cantu uses mise-en-scene to have things play out with a train flowing in the background. The trains in South Texas run on time, and so do the cops.
Non-diegetic sound revs up the intensity throughout. Yes, Nolan would smirk with pride at his influence on filmmaker Robert Cantu. More to come from both.
