It's kind of refreshing to see a guy like Nick Millard do such an ambitious plot. So far I've only seen two types of 'stories' from him. It's either a) people have sex in a moldy old house or b) people get stabbed with a tinfoil knife in a moldy old house. Now all of a sudden, we get international espionage? Count me in!
What's striking about "357 Magnum" is that Millard discovered a new location: outside. Obviously his house does make an appearance, but this movie also takes us to Angola, Hong Kong, Japan, England and Tucson (clearly the most impressive one). For practical reasons most of these locations are actually San Francisco, but it does seem like this movie had some kind of a budget. It's shot on (granted, atrocious) film with some semi-competent actors, which seems downright alien if you mostly know Millard from his shot-on-video projects from the 1980s. Hell, it doesn't even reuse the credits from "Criminally Insane"! All the names are clearly made-up though, with Millard giving himself the bizarre pseudonym Jan Anders. Come on, a script supervisor? A costumer? For the love of God, this movie barely has a director.
It's such a bizarre experience to see Millard actually try. I mean, this movie has an actual story, actors that appeared in other movies, it has music and dialogues and you know, things you associate with cinema. The Millard movies I know (and love, in a strange way) are essentially home videos that run out the clock by any means, usually with huge chunks of stock footage from his earlier movies. This on the other hand looks like it took more than a weekend to film. Maybe two weekends. It even goes over 60 minutes, though not by much.
That's not to say that avid Millard fans won't get what they're coming for here. This movie is still awful in a way only he can achieve. The gunfights literally look like what me and my cousins used to act out in grandma's attic. The photography is hideous, but I guess there's not much you can do with such cheap film stock. The editing appears to be done with a hacksaw. Some characters appear to have no chin because of weird framing choices (or possibly a bad transfer). Right in the middle of the 'finale', the movie suddenly cuts to footage of some girl performing a blowjob on a vibrator. This goes on for five agonizingly awkward minutes. The movie's terrible, but it's a masterpiece when compared to some other things Millard has done.
Biggest downer: I was looking forward to seeing the late, great Priscilla Alden in this movie, but she's only in it for about ten seconds. For shame, Nick, for shame.
