Heard a Miles Doleac interview on a radio show in CA and I finally got a chance to watch this great movie! I was really surprised how engaging it was and how the characters were thoroughly developed.
The antagonist and provocateur in the movie played by William Sadler is played as more of a confused soul than as a bad guy. This actually makes the entire story more believable. Sadler did an excellent job expressing the pain and emotion that his character, Valerian Hadley, is going through. Sadler is certainly under-rated as an actor and in this movie we finally get to see him do some serious work.
Miles Doleac writes and directs the movie as well as taking on the role of Professor Ben Rhodes. Being this is his first foray into writing and directing he does an impressive job. The story itself probably follows pieces of real life which is what makes the characters compelling. These could all be people we know and Doleac brings the depth, baggage and complexities to the screen in such a way that we can understand each of the characters.
My only knock would be that I think the Stacey Castillo character played by Leticia Jimenez doesn't get enough development. At 2-hours I am not sure there was enough time to get too deep into her character.
I really liked the movie. It is pretty serious and may not be the movie for you if you like a more lighthearted cinema. The dialog is more realistic than a lot of movies I've seen. How many of us really don't have prosaic speech in our day to day lives? I think a lot of independent projects like this go out of their way to be poetic and I don't think Doleac makes that attempt at all. He tells a story in a way that works for me.
The antagonist and provocateur in the movie played by William Sadler is played as more of a confused soul than as a bad guy. This actually makes the entire story more believable. Sadler did an excellent job expressing the pain and emotion that his character, Valerian Hadley, is going through. Sadler is certainly under-rated as an actor and in this movie we finally get to see him do some serious work.
Miles Doleac writes and directs the movie as well as taking on the role of Professor Ben Rhodes. Being this is his first foray into writing and directing he does an impressive job. The story itself probably follows pieces of real life which is what makes the characters compelling. These could all be people we know and Doleac brings the depth, baggage and complexities to the screen in such a way that we can understand each of the characters.
My only knock would be that I think the Stacey Castillo character played by Leticia Jimenez doesn't get enough development. At 2-hours I am not sure there was enough time to get too deep into her character.
I really liked the movie. It is pretty serious and may not be the movie for you if you like a more lighthearted cinema. The dialog is more realistic than a lot of movies I've seen. How many of us really don't have prosaic speech in our day to day lives? I think a lot of independent projects like this go out of their way to be poetic and I don't think Doleac makes that attempt at all. He tells a story in a way that works for me.