petedominicrobinson

I was expecting more of an action flick, from the title, (the original title was far better!) but was by the end relieved that it was not. Instead it deals with the human face of the incident, focusing on guests of various nationalities and backgrounds thrown together in a terrible, tense situation, and (to a lesser degree) the ideals and motivation of the gunmen involved.

The acting was excellent, the atmosphere and tension was at times nail biting, and the special / visual FX were ... well, adequate. Due to the budget, there were no massive set- pieces, amd while there was one or two ropey effects, this was mostly avoided by not aiming for gory, graphic thrills, but by adhering to the 'less is more' mantra... which in this case, it certainly was. And (thankfully is the wrong word... bravely...?) the film makers did not go for a saccharine- sweet ending, but rather one that haunted me for a long time after the film ended.

My only main criticisms would be that the filom was maybe 20 minutes too long, and also, seemingly contradictory, that I would have liked to see how the siege actually ended, and maybe some information on the other attacks that happened concurrently.

I would really highly recommend this film to anyone that isn't looking for a 'Die Hard with a Turban' film, or a feelgood, whitewashed version of the events... Oh, hell, even if you are (after all, I was!), try it anyway. You will be surprised!

This swords and sci-fi short is very impressive for what it is - an independent, crowd funded flick set in Predieval (TM) period, done on a minimal budget in a short turnaround time.

The biggest problem IS that it isn't long enough, but that is more down to the fact that it would have been able to flesh out the characters a bit more. It was never really going to happen in a sub 30 minute film, and an extra 20 minutes might have helped it, and potentially could be used as a decent pilot episode for a series,, were it not unofficial!

Another problem with it was the script, or rather, the dialog. The the plot was not exactly original, and had a couple of rather hackneyed plot and characterisation devices, such as 'let's split up... ' , an almost inevitable 'christian vs muslim' thread and a little mod to equality that seemed a little forced, it was to the point. But to achieve this, the dialogue seemed a little forced, and as trying to prove it's medieval cred.

A little ( or a lot!) more research into the period, and more fluid, dynamic dialogue would have raised my score an extra 1- 2 stars, since there was very little to fault in the sparse but effective, even nostalgic effects. Solidly done, as were the fight scenes. Well, scene.

The director made good use of the limited budget on locations, being shot entirely in woods / the countryside save one scene shot in a pretty convincing but er... compact and bijou... encampment. Obviously such constraints need to be made, but good use of sweeping ariel shots give a sense of scale, and the locations and cinematography belie the fact that this was shot for the price of a Danny Glover lookalike for your childs party. Props and costumes were very good - minimal, as they would have been - but adequate.

I haven't said much about the acting, and that's because it didn't strike me as much as the other things did. It is adequate. Good, even, given the dialogue they had to work with. With a better scriptwriter, and an extra 20 minutes, this could have been a very proficient pilot for a series. *For <$6000! They could film a whole series of this for the cost of even an average Netflix pilot! :)

I enjoyed it. I was pretty much mistaken in my suspicion that a fan- flic was going to be low- budget- awful, and i feel that i can rate this short against major Hollywood releases , and still feel fair in giving it a solid 6. Imagine what they could do with a even a Netflix budget!