Negative

The focus is on the two leads that are on the run from assassins. Now, the reason to why they meet and have to flee together is probably the most far fetched I've seen. Other than that the story holds up. The movie does not try to make suspense every corner but instead focus on building the characters from their dialog and actions. If you only like action and less talking, this is not the movie for you.

The somewhat dorky dialog evolves as the characters warm up to each other. Some would say the dialog was boring of coarse, to me it felt more real than most other movies in the genre.

A lot of story probably got cut along the making process. There were several things I felt was left out that could have lifted the story.

The actors did a solid job, specially Katia Winter was really god portraying a tough skinned spy with a conscious. Simon Quaterman did a good job as the "out of his comfort zone"-wimp but were struggling at times when some purer emotions where required.

I enjoyed this movie, but I probably wont see it again.

The guy still used a cheap, out-dated film camera took pictures? Still got dark room with red light to develop his films? Wow, if the story background is in the 80', I might buy the whole story more willingly. As to the storyline itself, that guy just took pictures randomly in the street, and he randomly took a picture of a woman in the park, then went home to develop what he took that day. Then the woman just showed up, knocked his apartment door and asked him to give her the negative. This is when I WOWed again. Then the so-called two killers, one male and one female Columbian Cartel, just like her showed up at this guy's apartment. Then well, she forced this guy to run away with her to Phoenix, Arizona. The storyline and the scenarios simply got so many loopholes that even a moron would find it difficult to swallow. She had already burnt and dumped everything she used to have, credit cards, phone, SIM card, passports, flash drive...whatever, there's no electronic chip planted under her skin, so why these two Columbian killers could still so easily follow up her trail? Why the British intelligence got to do business with the Columbian Cartel? Why she had to force this deadbeat so-called photographer to run away with her? Just because if without taking a male on the road trip and two assassins chasing after her, the story simply would become impossible to develop?

Bad movies are always full of holes without any logic, this film, although shot with some beautiful road scenes, sunrise and sunset, desert....yet the whole story was just based on a ridiculous ground. The two leading roles, the so-called British agent (Spy? For what?!) and the down-and-out photographer, actually performed pretty good, but again, if the premises of the storyline are ridiculous, there's no way to make them great. When films have to force the viewers to abandon their I.Q. and basic logic senses, they are just BAD films, and this one is no exception.

Give me back my 1.5 hour? Bad in everything. 3 stars for me ( courtesy )

Was drawn into seeing 'Negative', with a cool poster/cover, a promising trailer, an intriguing premise and as someone with a general appreciation for drama/thrillers. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Negative' is lacklustre, with so many huge flaws and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is not much to recommend in 'Negative'.

Lets start with the positives.. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky, and is surprisingly well shot.

'Negative' also starts off promisingly, it does intrigue and it does have creepiness in parts.

There is the odd assured directing touches and Katia Winter is quite good.

Going on to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it comes over as vague and under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less unsettled and never gaining momentum. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and excepting the quite good Katia Winter the acting isn't great, Sebastian Roche coming off worst, and the chemistry is bland.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace and film drags on forever after such an intriguing start and doesn't recover. Even the ending however is botched, due to being so afterthought-like and with no sense of how to end it. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense.

A lot of 'Negative' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or unsettling.

There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, while it is unimaginative and is more odd than scary or suspenseful, completely failing to show any sense of horror. Some badly sagging momentum too and a lot of weirdness. The direction is uneven, with some assured moments but a lot of ill-at-ease ones too.

Concluding, lacklustre but not without its moments. 4/10 Bethany Cox

A negative rating for Negative.

I'm not sure what accomplished director/producer/cinematographer Joshua Caldwell was thinking taking on this project.

This film has got to be the epitome of terrible writing and should be a classroom example of 'what not to do' when writing a screenplay. Why would Joshua take on (clearly) amateur writer Adam Gaines script is beyond me. Even his good directing and excellent cinematography could not save this disaster.

Aside from the super obvious plot holes and very poor story overall, the dragged-out unnecessary dialogue made this film unbearable and extremely boring. The way too long 1h 39min film length felt like 4 hours and I found myself saying "get on with it already, who cares!" when the two leads would just ramble on about nothing relevant. This movie may have been interesting if it was a 30 min short film (which oddly enough is the only minimal writing experience Adam Gaines has).

The acting was decent and Katia Winter was very easy on the eyes to look at, but her chemistry with Simon Quarterman was very unconvincing. Maybe it was the boring dialogue they had that made their chemistry absent.

Even the maybe total of 10 minutes of action scenes were overly dragged out. The rest of the film was primarily useless garbage dialogue with absolutely no point to the story - start to finish.

Don't waste your time with this one. See the trailer, and that's all the good and interesting parts you'll need to see.

This gets a 3/10 strictly for the directing and cinematography.