Since I've made low-budget films myself, I first must say that I am impressed by what Simone put together with Philip Kim's script.
It's a professional product and very nice production value throughout. Especially some of the car-scenes had some complicated and really nice filming. I enjoyed the editing with the German-like experimental split-screen - especially since it was mostly used to tell two sides of the same scene.
Of course, we have seen most of this before. Especially in the MAD MAX-films, of course, but mostly, this film resembles A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) and there's also a lot of nods to Enzo Castellari's incredible Italian Mad Max-rip off I NUOVI BARBARI (1982).
Downstream IS very Italian. If you haven't seen any of the Italian post-nuke films, then you're missing out on a lot of the films inspiration.
Mostly, I thought this was well-made and for the low budget these people worked with, they created a nice film that works. Sadly, the ending is a bit slow.
Otherwise, the fights and car-action was very good. It reminds me a lot of Marshall's DOOMSDAY (2008), of course - but do remember that that film had a $30M budget and this only a $1M! So if you like the casual Italian post-apocalypse thing, then this is for you.
