This Is Not a Love Song

Saw the premiere for this at Edinburgh film festival. it was a great film, made in only 12 days of filming, in scotland. the director, writer and 2 leads were present, and answered questions, which was cool. if you get the chance to watch it, do, its excellent.

A suspenseful thriller that bears some resemblance to Deliverance as for scenery and setting. There are also some very innovatively shot scenes and good music, although the daftness and sometimes seemingly careless attitude of one of the characters is unfitting to the situation, although this is not a mayor problem. It also poses interesting questions about justness of revenge and limits of friendship.

The small time criminal Heaton (Kenny Glenaan) is anxiously waiting for the release of his close friend Spike (Michael Colgan), after spending a couple of months in prison for being caught with 87g of marijuana. Heaton robs a truck, meets Spike outside the penitentiary and travels with him through the country to drink some beers and celebrate his freedom. However, they run out gas and try to steal from a farm, but the owner arrives and arrests Heaton. Spike takes his shotgun and accidentally kills his daughter. They runaway through the wilderness while the locals organize a militia to hunt the criminals.

I glanced the good IMDb reviews before buying the DVD "This Is not a Love Song" and I am really disappointed with this weird and overrated low-budget movie. The story explores the same situation of "Deliverance"; uses a terrible camera like in "The Blair Witch Project"; the lead characters are not well developed and there is no clear explanation of their close relationship, only insinuation that Heaton might be homosexual and loves Spike, who seems to be retarded or very stupid. The acting is excellent and very realistic, and is the better offered in this flick. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Fuga Alucinada" ("Hallucinated Runaway")

I'm watching this film as I write (it is after all an internet download) and the feeling I get is of lots of talk and little action. I feel no connection with the two characters, who are not really likeable at all.

Their actions are incongruous with the events. Would you joke and waffle that much in the higlands on obviously cold days trekking through mountains after you killed somebody..? Drugtaking? No you would act differently. The problem I have is there is too much talk... This is a movie not a theatre play...

Anyway the thing I applaud is the fact that it was a low budget film which was distributed in an original way (hey it got me watching it) and I hope it will do well therefore.

to start id have to say this is a good film and knowing the conditions under which it was made with little money and in a short space of time i think that the team behind it have done a good job. i do however have a few criticisms one thing that i don't like is the lack of emphasis upon Heatons homosexuality and his feelings towards spike. i think that if it had been made more obvious to the viewer we could have understood his despair and his mixed emotions towards spike better. another thing i didn't like was how the film seemed to lose itself at times not carrying the momentum it started with. this was a bit distracting and removed me out of the experience at times. there were points were the emotion's that the audience were meant to feel weren't made very clear and it was neither laid out or open to interpretation for example the scene were the girl is shot builds tension but then the father lets out a comedic scream which ruins the work before it.

overall a good film but i think more time might have helped this picture to become something more. it was however never going to have mainstream appeal with the underlying sub contexts that may have struggled to make an impact on modern audience's. i do not think that it was meant for mainstream cinema anyway so in a way that is understandable, its a shame it wont reach a wider audience but its flaws would stop it from box office success anyway.