It's easy to see the potential in this film noir about a young man (John Drew Barrymore) out for revenge when his hardworking father is brutally beaten in front of him, and the nightmare he finds while traveling all over looking for the culprits. But the experimental way in which this script develops its characters fails miserably because they are never fully fleshed out, just flat cardboard cutouts that you'd read about in a dime store pulp novel.
The film seems to be recorded in a tunnel and at times, the echoing becomes painful to listen to. By restricting the action to mostly indoor sets, you really don't feel the tension that the leading character is facing, and while this chlaustrophobia could have worked in smaller doses, you begin to feel that the walls closing in on Barrymore are closing in on you too.
But there are a few amazing moments, particularly when Barrymore is in an all black nightclub and envisions his father being beaten while the drummer bangs out his part of the rhythm. His encounter with a black singer outside the nightclub is rather strange, but really revealing nothing but what the writer wanted to insinuate about society and never took any further than that moment. Still the pained look on the singer's face (complimented then suddenly degraded) is very haunting.
This is basically a connect the dots story, but unfortunately there are only three of them which doesn't make for much of a challenge. It's a mishmash of absurd twists and turns, ugly secrets and underwhelming revelations, desperate in need of stronger direction, a less heavy handed script and a different way of the potentially great leading actor developing this troubled young man. Someone else in the sound booth (or perhaps extra checkings of all the wires being connected) may have aided in a full projection by those in front of the camera. This big night seems covered in fog, and that makes it a night where everybody should have stayed home.
The film seems to be recorded in a tunnel and at times, the echoing becomes painful to listen to. By restricting the action to mostly indoor sets, you really don't feel the tension that the leading character is facing, and while this chlaustrophobia could have worked in smaller doses, you begin to feel that the walls closing in on Barrymore are closing in on you too.
But there are a few amazing moments, particularly when Barrymore is in an all black nightclub and envisions his father being beaten while the drummer bangs out his part of the rhythm. His encounter with a black singer outside the nightclub is rather strange, but really revealing nothing but what the writer wanted to insinuate about society and never took any further than that moment. Still the pained look on the singer's face (complimented then suddenly degraded) is very haunting.
This is basically a connect the dots story, but unfortunately there are only three of them which doesn't make for much of a challenge. It's a mishmash of absurd twists and turns, ugly secrets and underwhelming revelations, desperate in need of stronger direction, a less heavy handed script and a different way of the potentially great leading actor developing this troubled young man. Someone else in the sound booth (or perhaps extra checkings of all the wires being connected) may have aided in a full projection by those in front of the camera. This big night seems covered in fog, and that makes it a night where everybody should have stayed home.