Fateful Findings.

Review #1767: Fateful Findings.

Cast: 

Neil Breen (Dylan), Jennifer Autry (Leah), Klara Landrat (Emily), Danielle Andrade (Aly), Victoria Viveiros (Amy), and David Silva (Jim) Directed, Written, and Produced by Neil Breen.

Review: 

There was a small idea in my mind that this was an elaborate joke set up to fool folks on the Internet, honestly. I had seen clips of this film the past few months, but I really did have to give myself time before I could exhume this "curiosity". And yet, here we are with a movie made by a guy who does his own sound editing, casting, set design, effects, and craft services to go along with the usual stuff. Breen grew up on the East Coast with an interest in filmmaking from a young age. He studied architecture in college and soon became a licensed architect. He saved money in order to self-finance his own films, which started with Double Down (2005) and I Am Here.... Now (2009). We are talking about a director who likes to use ".biz" as part of their website, remember. 

Look, there has to be a middle ground between terming the movie as "one of the worst" or "so bad it's good". Frankly, hyperbole is pretty boring to begin with, so getting mad at a movie is just as embarassing as being some sort of irony-laced critic who tries to find quality in flailing product that is just inept. In short, the obvious statement for this film is that it is a failure in its attempt at making a coherent narrative with execution, regardless of however much money was put into it. Really if you think about it, the movie is of the same kind of reminder as The Room (2003), because both features have a lead actor doing much of the legwork in filming with their own funding that think we want to see them take their shirt off. Of course, Harold P. Warren's Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) comes to mind with a working-man director going on a crash-course with the reality of inept filmmaking, such as say...effects...or shot composition...or line delivery-hell, you get the idea. Breen obviously has the persistance to tell some sort of story, even if it might read like someone's offbeat power fantasy of themselves, complete with fantasies about taking down corruption and magic rocks. You are likely wondering just what is the movie about: A man gets hit by a car but uses the power of a stone he has had for decades to heal himself while secretly working...to hack the Internet to find secret government stuff while his wife OD's on drugs and his best friend mysteriously kills himself while various women come into his life to give him "attention". To top it all, did I mention that he can teleport through solid material? At any rate, if you want to not be spoiled by what could happen next, ignore the next sentence that deals with an expose of evil folks getting exposed and promptly killing themselves.

The level of acting here is worth exactly what you would expect from a ragtag crew (read: a handful) that apparently didn't even have the full script available to then. Repeating dialogue might work in an arthouse production, but it ultimately proves more amusing than anything, particularly since the movie doesnt exactly make a great deal of sense anyway. Characters come and go with barely any motivation besides what one guesses (such as vanishing therapists or doctors happening to be long lost friends that are clearly not the same age). Watching the movie is a unique experience of bad filmmaking, one that can attract folks looking for irony or movies to pick on the chance to enjoy such bizarre ineptness. The surprises dont stop with seeing one person without clothes in a black box (maybe it some sort of surreal message or a great joke at us), but reading a bunch of events in the plot is probably not as curious as actually seeing it for yourself. Honestly, while there is no true point earned by the movie for its technical merits, Breen shows just enough ambition (without turning to self deprecation or snobbery) that manages to make this something I could recommend for anyone looking for "outsider" moviemaking, one that doesn't exactly waste all of one's time.

Overall, I give it 1 out of 10 stars.

Well, that is the end of Turkey Week Two. I hope you enjoyed these stinkers and the curious perspectives that came from the directors that made them, and I hope to have something just as interesting next November.