This was hard to watch from the very beginning. The very first scenes do give a very good idea of the poor quality of this very improbable story done on the cheap. But that, lack of resources was hardly the problem. It's just a poorly done flic all-around.
The flic moves unnecessarily slow, with many scenes that feeling like filler, and repetitive in their intent. About 20- 30% of what is shown does not contribute to the story in any way.
The cinematography is also poor, from the low quality of the images to it's inconsistent style. Some scenes are poorly framed, others poorly focused; some are both.
The acting feels generally contrived. The worse problem here is the witting, not only the story but also the script. They are very poor, as bad as the direction. The casting is also off, with few of the actors looking the part.
But I kept feeing sorry for the actors. They are all unknowns, but some still did ok with what they were handed. But if they are any good, this was an "opportunity" to look bad -- they were handed a very hard task, impossible to do much with it.
I started watching this movie because I like most noir films, even those from almost 100 years ago under much lower technical resources and standards. Some that barely pass as ok can still be enjoyable with the interesting plots or characters; but his one simply sucks.
I first noticed this movie because of the many glowing reviews here, which are reported in aggregate in places like Amazon --but they are clearly fake, as exaggerated as some of the "acting".
Some "movie-makers" cannot or won't put in the effort to make acceptable products, but they use whatever trick to fool the public into watching their garbage. Again, I feel sorry for the actors, especially the few that did ok in their parts -- some of small ones.
