Red Stone: Caçada Mortal

So found this one along and thought it looked like a modern western and it has one of my favorite actors in Michael Cudlitz - Shout out to Gross Point Blank- McDonough is always fun as a baddie.

POSITIVES; The cinematography was awesome. It was gritty and had a weird red vibe. It was old school with long shots and let the actors act. The sparse action scenes were cool and the f/x were solid and old school. This was definitely a love letter to old gangster films. The acting for the most part was great. Loved the Hutch role. Billy Blare was awesome.

NEGATIVES; It was billed as an action film. An article I saw said it was a western film too. It is not either. There is action in it and it was made in Texas, I think. But it's not a western. It's closer to a dixie mafia type film. Or like Justified without the action.

I didn't like the music. I appreciate what they were doing but it wasn't my favorite.

The film moves slow and that's okay for some people. But I think the way the movie preview made it look, some will think it's more action.

Overall really cool little gangster film. Some gritty moments too.

7/10.

Wow, just wow. This movie was a complete waste of time. I was expecting it to slowly build it up for the ending, but NO. Sat through the whole thing, to see... That. Sloppy writing, horribly directed, bad pacing - real amateur hour. Damn shame for McDonough, though. Man can act really well, and at times I saw he tried, but the writing just wasn't there to make it work.

I suggest you skip this one, watch something else.

This was probably one of the worst directed films I've seen in a long time. Novice writer and director Derek Presley also failed miserably in directing his cast, as everyone - except McDonough, seemed lost, bored, and didn't know how to act. He kept filming scenes that should've been ended, with the cast just standing around waiting for him to say "cut". Then you have a convoluted story with random unexplained scenes. What was the entire first 5-10 mins about? Drive up to a bridge, see a car, look around, a phone rings and you leave. Total amateur hour filmmaking. Never mind the ridiculous and easily avoidable plot and technical issues. Then you add the slow as molasses pacing, and the unnecessarily long - and what seemed unedited 97 min runtime, and you'll be pulling your hair out wanting it all to end. Presley should've at least had a seasoned writer fix his screenplay, because with such little substance and too much filler, this may have worked as a short or made-for-TV 1 hour film. Low budget B film or not, inexperienced filmmaker or not, there was no excuse to leave so many easily fixable flaws. I wouldn't even expect such a mess from a 5th grade drama class. The score started off loud and annoying, but either I got used to it, or it simmered down towards the end. This film did have some hope and promise to allow overlooking some flaws, but it just had too many of them, and knowing even a decent editor could've fixed most of them, is inexcusable. It's a very generous 3/10 from me, all going to McDonough who was the only one that did anything to hold up this mess while it was drowning.

I can't stress enough how bored I was watching this film. This wannabe John Wick picture fails in every part of the process of movie-making and that is why I mostly blame the director Derek Presley for the disappointment this film is. Except for Neal McDnough (who is doing what he can to save this picture) every character/actor seems bored, confused and actually bad at acting. Than you have the story itself with many random unexplained scenes and long slow camera shots, which I believe were an attempt at some more "refined" camera work, but felt like the director forgot to say "cut!" instead. Maybe with some editing it could have been salvageable, but as it is I cannot recommend it.

Who makes this stuff?!

Low budget amateur hour effort from people who should have known better.

I just can't believe it.

These people should stick to whatever they were doing before they decided to make movies because they sure don't seem to have the talent for this field.

An absolute embarrassment.