Crawl

I attended a screening of this impressive movie last night at FrightFest in Glasgow, also in attendance were the China Brothers.

After reading some critic reviews of the movie where it was described as a "slow burner" etc I prepared myself for 60 minutes of tortuous nothingness followed by 30 minutes of manic catching up before ending in a bang.

Crawl was not a slow burner. Crawl is a brilliantly crafted work of suspense, tension and horror. From the very beginnings, the China Brothers mould their characters in front of you, building them into solid centerpieces of their film - without giving too much away - the casting of the three main actors in this is perfect, and, given they only had a very limited script to work with, they deliver the tense and suspenseful scenes with powerful ease.

Location, actors, storyline, delivery and end product are all perfect, and I look forward to Brothers' future work with great anticipation, as they lavish such care and attention on their work, that they deserve a far wider release with Crawl and future films.

Don't miss this if it visits a cinema near you - you won't be disappointed.

This Australian neo-noir crime thriller is the film debut by the China brothers. It is all but impossible to avoid comparisons to "Blood Simple" (1984), the first film by the Coen brothers. Both films take a simple story about grubby small-time criminals and turn it into an impressive showcase of cinematic style and fluid technique.

The sketchy plot concerns a seedy bar owner (well played by William Garvey) in a rural town who hires an enigmatic Croatian hit-man (George Shevtsov) to murder an old enemy. But the assassin double-crosses him -- for reasons that are never explained. Meanwhile, Lauren Dillon (the obligatory beautiful blond girl), is alone in a big house where she frequently hears strange noises. Anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows that searching for an intruder in an empty house is just asking for trouble. These moments, and an extended cat- and-mouse sequence later on, are set pieces for the filmmakers to show off their impressive technical skills. There are tense, Hitchcockian passages of sustained suspense that are seamlessly constructed with amazing confidence.

Unfortunately style and technique can't salvage this woefully half-baked script. There is barely enough plot to fill out the scant 75-minute story. And what little narrative there is makes no sense. The story is full of maddening lapses in logic. The hit-man, in particular, does all sorts of strange things for no apparent reason. There is no characterization (who are these people?), no explanation for motive, and no relationships to bind the characters together. Instead, the three principals are thrown together by a series of implausible coincidences.

There is just one scene with a bit of character development, which also (sort of) explains the enigmatic title. The bar owner, besides being involved in various criminal activities, is also a domineering pervert. One of his waitresses owes him money (details are never explained, of course) and she works off $100 of her debt by submissively "giving him the crawl" on all fours then going over his lap for a hard hand spanking.

Someday, this film may become a landmark, like "Blood Simple", not for what it delivers, but for what it promises. The China brothers are clearly bursting with talent and ambition and will almost certainly create some stylish and memorable films in the future. Keep an eye on them.

One of the dullest so-called thrillers I've seen in a long time, CRAWL has aspirations to be the next classic Aussie movie. The only good thing I can say about it is that director Paul China clearly knows his movies, but there's being inspired by and ripping off, and CRAWL falls into the latter category. In various press releases, China and his brother are described as the new Coen Brothers, but CRAWL is more like a Coen Brothers rip-off.

The opening scene is about the most memorable bit in it and even that rips off NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN like nobody's business. After this point we're in BLOOD SIMPLE territory, with a slow-burning plot involving a small cast who come together on one fateful night. Bloodshed ensues, but everything is dragged out to an endless degree so it becomes a chore to sit through. There's no artistry here, no suspense or gripping moments, just a film that eventually becomes silly because it's so po-faced.

It doesn't help that the script fails to breathe life into the various uninteresting characters, or that the cast members are singularly unmemorable. But by far the worst thing about this is the director himself, who has no idea of how to make a thriller work. I think even I, with zero training in film-making, could have done a better job.

Okay there was a superlative amount of music to attempt to crank up the tension level in this one. There was a shower scene with not enough skin. There was a spanking scene with not enough skin. Scenes are dragged on a little bit too long, as there really wasn't a whole lot going on. Can't give this one any better than a 4/10.

Some Hitchcock elements here too. but overplayed.

Pause and silence on of the powerful tools in movies but both overdone.

And one of the slowest movies I have ever seen,... very little intrigue,...action seems to get started but each time momentum dies off with long boring sequences.

So "Crawl" refers to how time crawls in this movie.

Do yourself a favor, keep your remote handy and your finger on the fast forward button,...

one sure sign of whether a movie is good is if you would like to see it again - this is a definite no.

Ram