Enemy (2013)

ENEMY        B             
Canada  Spain  (90 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Denis Villeneuve        Official Site

Chaos is order yet undeciphered.   

—The Double (O Homem Duplicado), by José Saramago, 2002

Despite the blip that is Prisoners (2013), something of an aberration in this director’s body of work, it was perhaps a bloated pay date needed to make the smaller budgeted kind of movies that he more typically wants to make, usually expressing an unhinged, apocalyptic world out of control, but shown through an arthouse sensibility.  This film returns to the grim reality of a sleek modernism and existential ennui of Antonioni, where the Toronto skyline is bathed in a brownish tinge, as if continually shrouded in a layer of smog, where the world is seen through drab, washed out colors.  This different look holds a key to understanding all is not right, where the film actually toys with the territory of Shane Carruth’s PRIMER (2004), playing the same kind of psychological mind games with the audience.  It begins with a prelude sequence that may or may not be a dream, bearing a surprising similarity to the ritualized orgy sequence of Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT (1999), but is then quickly forgotten as we return to the banal existence of the classroom where college professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) spends his days lecturing to mostly bored students, describing how the Romans used entertainment, “bread and circuses,” as an effective diversion to distract the public from their larger unstated goal, which was to maintain total control over the population, emphatically reminding his students that history has a way of repeating itself, before returning home at night to a mostly disinterested relationship with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent), where having sex has become a habitual routine, as they barely even acknowledge one another.  While they share the same space, they may as well be strangers.  Even at work, Adam is something of an isolated and dejected looking individual, rarely cracking a smile, often keeping to himself, avoiding social contact.  While eating a sandwich in the lunchroom, a coworker asks him if he goes out much, “You don’t go to movies, do you?”  After an awkward silence, he asks the coworker to finish his thought, asking if he had a recommendation.  While this appears as idle talk, the recommended movie changes the entire dynamic of the film. 

The early focus of the film shows how Adam may have a glass of wine at night, or become preoccupied on his computer as a way of avoiding contact with Mary, where he watches this low budget comedy, supposedly to lift his spirits, after she’s already gone to bed.  While the film itself is of little consequence, a breezy, lightweight comedy called Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way, which initially generates little reaction.  It’s only afterwards when he wakes up in a state of panic that he goes back and rewinds the movie to a certain scene where one of the minor characters, a bellhop, looks exactly identical to himself.  This moment is beautifully set up by a certain confusion where the audience isn’t certain if this is real or a dream, where it could also be part of the movie, but the onset of horror and shock sets in when Adam comes to the startling realization that there’s an exact double of himself running around out there in the world.  Curiosity gets the better of him, where he investigates this little known actor and discovers he’s Anthony Clare, living outside Toronto, where initially he contacts his pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon, seen earlier in the opening prelude), which opens up a can of worms in the Clare household, as Helen initially suspects her husband of cheating, while also instilling a feeling of alarm in Adam, who insists upon meeting and seeing his double, but this happening defies belief, as it simply confounds rational thought.  Isabella Rossellini has a wonderfully mysterious role as his mother, claiming of course there’s no possibility of a brother, but then in the same breath tells him he should stop wasting his time doing those third rate acting pictures, which is like a small bomb going off somewhere in our heads, as we wonder (from the safe distance of our seats) how can this be?  Poor Adam has even less to go on, yet it’s actually happening to him, so he literally shudders at the thought.  The similarities between the two are an exact physical replica, but they have personality differences, as Adam is quieter, less ambitious, more somber and structured, moving with a certain quizzical trepidation, while Anthony is more extravagant and self-centered, an overcontrolling guy with a quick temper that needs to be the center of attention, dressed in a leather jacket, living in a sterile but upscale modern home, moving with a more reckless moral abandon, where he doesn’t feel the least bit guilty about cheating on his wife. 

Based on the novel The Double by José Saramago, whose work was also the source material to Fernando Meirelles’ BLINDNESS (2008), the film is adapted by a Javier Guillón script and Nicolas Bolduc’s edgy cinematography which gives the unsettling futuristic appearance of looming high rise buildings caught in a yellowish brown haze, where in one hallucinogenic image, a giant spider is seen hovering over a gloomy landscape of the city, where the overhanging trolley lines resemble a spider’s web, as if somehow this is an alternate nightmarish version of what’s real.  Because of the similar features of the two wives, both attractive young blonds, with marital difficulties expressed in each case, it’s easy to see how these two could be confused as well, except that Helen is noticeably pregnant.  Because her husband is hiding behind this incident, Helen grows curious about this other guy, following him to school, where she sees for herself how one is like the cloned copy of the other.  Actually, as the film progresses, the men switch identities and Adam exhibits more of the ruthless behavior of Anthony, suggesting interior compulsions that can’t be controlled coming from the subconscious, where we are reminded of Adam’s earlier lecture describing a totalitarian system, claiming one reason they succeed is that “They censor any means of individual expression.”  The film plays out as an allegorical nightmare, turning raw, graphic, and intensely real by the end, with an unforgettable final shot.  Certainly with an exact double and a parallel existence, it’s suggestive of what life would be like under a totalitarian system, as one could never be an individual again.  Saramago was three years old when a military coup overthrew the Portuguese government, living under a fascist regime for the next 48 years, where this is a common theme explored throughout most of his work, “We live in a dark age, when freedoms are diminishing, when there is no space for criticism, when totalitarianism—the totalitarianism of multinational corporations, of the marketplace—no longer even needs an ideology, and religious intolerance is on the rise.  Orwell’s ‘1984’ is already here.”  If history has a way of repeating itself, fascist regimes occur again and again throughout history, where these historic parallels are patterns of connecting threads, like a spider’s web, where we are caught unawares in a trap of authoritarian rule that has us in its clutches before we realize far too late what’s happening.       

Sun Don't Shine

SUN DON’T SHINE              B-   
USA  (82 mi)  2012  d:  Amy Seimetz   

Everything about this movie is extremely well-crafted except for the deplorable two lead characters that couldn’t be less interesting, yet they’re onscreen for nearly the entire film, where the sagging weight on their shoulders is more than they or the audience can bear, ultimately sinking an otherwise stellar effort by this first time feature filmmaker.  Seimetz may be better known for her acting role in the recent Shane Carruth film Upstream Color (2013), and prior to that Adam Wingard’s A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE (2010), Lena Dunham’s TINY FURNITURE (2010), and a host of other smallish indie films.  To put it mildly, she is an atrocious director of acting performances, feeling indifferent, allowing performances to drift into self-indulgence, as the two leads here are among the worst ever in an otherwise excellent film.  She apparently directs by not directing, allowing the actors to simply improvise their way through a movie, and the result is awkwardly uncomfortable and purely amateurish.  For all practical purposes, this is a loose remake of Terrence Malick’s BADLANDS (1973), a lovers on the run movie with a mind-altering sound design that is easily the best thing about the film, where one imagines they spent their entire budget on a first rate, Hollywood quality production design, leaving nothing left afterwards, where they likely felt they could manage to figure it out, making a kind of mumblecore horror film.  While Seimetz is the writer, director, editor, and producer on the film, with Shane Carruth as a listed producer in the credits, it shares the same feeling for stylistically proficient but total lack of character in Carruth’s films, while at the same time Seimetz was an associate producer for Barry Jenkins’ Medicine for Melancholy (2008), which features two highly appealing and incredibly naturalistic lead performances.  So in small indie films, one never knows what to expect, as performances are all over the map, some quite compelling, but not here, where the performances literally ruin the film.     

Something of a schizophrenic film, as clearly this is an experiment gone wrong, where one half is nearly an A while the other half is nearly an F, one would think this might have been noticed before the release, because to screen it in this way feels like a lazily incomplete film, like what we are seeing are the performance outtakes, where one might think they have no professional acting experience, but both have an extensive history working in low budget films in recent years.  Leo (Kentucker Audley) and Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) are the lovers on the run, where their relationship is abusive from the outset, as Leo is overcontrolling, physically hurtful, and psychologically demanding, while Crystal apologizes for every little thing, as she is made to feel like everything is her fault, even getting choked and physically manhandled.  The superb handheld cinematography by Jay Keitel is often stunning, beautifully capturing the mix of Central Florida’s natural beauty and the tawdry kitsch of the commercial tourist industry.  Like being trapped between two worlds, this couple travels in their broken down car which itself barely runs, as it’s literally falling apart, requiring frequent stops to add water to the overheating radiator, doors that need to be opened from the outside, and a trunk that opens only with the aid of a screwdriver.  Their car feels like a trapped character just crying out for help, but remains ignored and unattended throughout, where the bulk of the film is witnessing the disturbing interplay between the two lovers, where Crystal often has a punishing, overly smothering effect with her unending, mindless chatter, evoking the simplistic state of mind of Sissy Spacek in BADLANDS, but taking it to her own level of shallow insecurity, where she is constantly asking for her possessive love to be returned.  Leo, on the other hand, is constantly on the verge of blowing a gasket through utter frustration, angrily blaming Crystal for everything, even as he is the one that never stops making mistakes.  Leo is such a control freak that once he has a thought, he refuses to alter it, even if there’s a better idea.  That’s not in the cards for Leo, who has to live with the consequences of his overly self-absorbed philosophy. 

By the time the film’s secrets are revealed, the first thought that jumps to mind is how many opportunities they have throughout their travels to solve their problems earlier and make things easier on themselves, as they are often seen traveling in remote and isolated spots, but these two crackpots would rather make things as difficult as possible, where each slowly unravels before our eyes, becoming a darker and more noirish film, though it occurs almost exclusively in the oppressively bright sunshine, where tourists rarely feel so annoyingly intrusive, becoming an instrument of a deteriorating state of mind.  Unfortunately, these aren’t the actors to express this mental fissure as they simply don’t have the range.  The result is one can appreciate the visual expression and an utterly enthralling sound design, which combine to establish a murky atmosphere of fear, dread, and approaching danger, where the details of their lives slowly emerge into an approaching catastrophe of enveloping horror.  Much of it set in the director’s home town of St. Petersburg, Florida, the overall atmosphere is poisoned by a toxic stench of suffocating paranoia and distrust, growing more disturbing until their lives are completely contaminated.  While the atmosphere is drenched with complexity, these two nitwits don’t have an ounce of brains or mystery between them, existing only on a superficial periphery, where they are the vast internal wasteland of disorientation and human dysfunction, of little consequence to the overall outcome, as so little sympathy is ever generated toward either one.  This odd imbalance of such insipidly ill-matched characters caught up in such an eerily seductive, yet rotting atmosphere does resemble Barbara Loden’s remarkable Wanda (1970), an unflattering portrait of another woman with such low self-esteem and no ambition, but in Loden’s film, her very existence was a revelation to cinema.  Half a century later, perhaps Seimetz is suggesting we haven’t made much progress. 

Upstream Color

UPSTREAM COLOR        C+                       

USA  (96 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Shane Carruth

Despite all the hoopla about this film, and more particularly the filmmaker, this is not a marked improvement over his earlier film PRIMER (2004), one of the low budget marvels of the last decade.  Waiting 9-years to make his eagerly awaited second film, there is a cult audience clamoring for something implicitly deep and complex from this film, perhaps another sci-fi puzzle film, but they won’t find it.  Instead it’s simply an obscure, largely experimental piece that attempts to be more than it is, as whatever narrative there is remains obfuscated by a sketchy design that remains elusive at best.  The problem is whatever themes or subject matter he is attempting to explore just never rise to the level of interest, as characters nearly sleepwalk through their roles, never generating any relevant dramatic connection.  Before he was a film director, Carruth was a math major, becoming a computer programmer developing flight simulating software.  As his two films suggest, guys heavily into science don’t always make the best communicators.  In fact, one might think there is a pervading style of filmmaking where at least part of what it’s about is the difficulty in communicating, for instance teen angst films, or Heath Ledger in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005), where he takes the hesitant and inarcticulate nature of a young cowboy to an artform, or the many variations of supposedly naturalistic dialogue from low-budget Duplass brothers or Andrew Bujalski mumblecore movies, a fringe movement about post-college or early adult white people with problems that never really connected with mainstream audiences, as they’re not really about much of anything.  Damned if that doesn’t plague this picture as well, where its intentional ambiguity remains a puzzle not worth exploring.  Even if there is a coherent story here, the question is what difference does it make?  How does a film like this have any relevance in our lives?  Wanting this to be about something, like say the enveloping fear and paranoia of THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974), is not the same as making a profoundly affecting film, where the underlying focus sticks with you for days and weeks afterwards, perhaps even a lifetime.  Interest in this film fades quickly.

As best as one can determine, there are two opposing wavelengths occurring here, where one is a high degree of sensitivity and thought, where you’re able to sense things others don’t see or hear, almost like an autistic sensory level, where one’s capacity to reflect upon altered states of existence, or a unique “otherness,” may be completely mystifying to some, but certainly early on we see many gathered together, including at various times both Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Shane Carruth) drinking what is believed to be a special (parasite infected) purified water, something to help achieve a state of wellness, where one hopes to feel better than at any other point in one’s life.  The downside is the sacrifice or price paid to achieve this sense of heightened elevation, real or imagined, where you have no memory of what happened and leave yourself open to unscrupulous operators, achieving a near hypnotic state like a cult brainwashing effect where people can take advantage of your vulnerability and steal all your money, leaving you paranoid and in fear, but also angry and demoralized by the entire process afterwards.  But at least initially you want to believe, like the strange Russian sci-fi film Target (Mishen) (2011) that promises everlasting youth, only to ask yourself later, but at what price?  Unknown to each other at the outset, Kris and Jeff are mysteriously drawn to one another, perhaps unknowing why, though Kris is so incommunicative and unapproachable that one has to wonder what’s the attraction?  She wears an enormous large-sized headset at all times in public, listening to who knows what, but obviously to keep other people away.  Nonetheless Jeff persists, as if by supernatural calling, where he believes they are drawn to one another, perhaps to help one another understand what they’ve mutually forgotten, helping each other piece together missing memories, even though they barely talk.  This leads to an intimate relationship, as if by osmosis, where it’s certainly not their unbelievably poor communication skills, where they talk over each other’s words and ignore one another with regularity.  What changes is Kris gets pregnant, or at least thinks she does, as her conscious existence is seemingly tracked by the parasite she swallowed, which ends up at a pig farm.  It’s actually Kris’s pig that gets pregnant, unbeknownst to her, where Kris grows irate when they take the little piglets away. 

There is no explanation for this transference of human consciousness, which goes through yet a third life cycle when the pig farmer wraps several chosen pigs in a sack and drowns them in the river, where the parasite passes through their bodies in a bluish fluid that is released upstream causing exotic orchids to grow.  From these orchids is extracted the original parasite that begins this strange life cycle all over again.  What is certainly bizarre is the state of inexplicable anger mixed with utter indifference by the humans used as guinea pigs, where they do not seem to be in control of their own human faculties, still affected long after the parasites have left their own bodies.  Now if aliens had passed through these bodies, like the high powered, heavy metal infused THE HIDDEN (1987), an over the top, sci-fi story that packs a punch, then you’ve got something to generate interest for decades to come.  But in this dreamy saga of lost souls, roaming the earth in a state of listless apathy, where the true meaning of their lives is apparently stolen by a series of unscrupulous business transactions which happens to block the ethereal wavelengths.  When Kris takes to swimming, spouting gibberish poolside as she dives for stones on the bottom of the pool, Jeff is able to decipher her apparent mad ramblings as quotations from Thoreau’s Walden, of all things, a springboard to freedom if ever there was such a thing.  If it wasn’t so goofy, it might actually be entertaining, but it’s not, as the entire film is cast in such a darkly somber mood, as if the whole thing was the invention of rabid conspiracy theorists who see the end of the world near through genetic mutation.  Damn the scientists and mega corporations for spreading toxic poisons throughout the world altering the face of humanity.  The best thing in the film is easily the atmospheric score written by Carruth, who writes, directs, edits, acts, composes the music, and self produces his own film, an ambitious compilation of responsibilities for what is ultimately a dreadfully impersonal, drearily sad reflection of the human condition in the modern age, where swindlers and snake oil salesmen, aka the capitalist conglomerate enterprises maintain a greedy, monopolistic control over an easily hoodwinked populace looking for a quick and easy fix.  The idea of violating the natural order of things is nothing new, hardly revelatory, and never digs deep enough to matter.  Not sure what the characters are listening to on their giant headsets, apparently tuning out the rest of the world, and the audience with them. 

Sound of My Voice

SOUND OF MY VOICE              B               

USA  (85 mi)  2011  d:  Zal Batmanglij             Official site

Another barebones indie film that must have been made on a dime, resembling in many ways the ultimate small-time film project of Shane Carruth’s PRIMER (2004), which is about the ramifications of time traveling through an invented time machine, where one seemingly has the capacity to alter the events of the future.  This film, co-written and produced by lead actress Brit Marling, from Another Earth (2011), takes a different approach, laying out the groundwork for how today’s society would be receptive (or not) to a visitor who claims to be from the future, namely 2054.  The inherent twist of this story, like it is for John Carpenter’s They Live (1988), is how few people are aware of the traveler’s presence, where there’s an elaborate preparatory process one must undergo simply to meet her, which includes driving to a specific location, switching to another van where all incoming passengers are blindfolded, so as not to know their destination, where they shower and change into hospital scrubs before meeting Klaus (Richard Wharton), who greets each individual with this 25 second handshake that couldn’t be more ridiculous, but it’s meticulously exact each time.  After that, Maggie (Marling) enters breathing from an oxygen tank.  All members of this exclusive “club” must donate blood for Maggie, as she never leaves her underground world, grows her own food in a greenhouse, and amasses what amounts to a cult following, where she describes her life on occasion, but seems more inclined to deal with the doubters among them, isolating them before throwing them out, separating couples involved in relationships, making sure all show allegiance to her.  One such couple, Peter and Lorna (Christopher Denham and Nicole Vicius), are investigative journalists who decide to infiltrate the cult with hidden cameras, something along the lines of Sam Fuller’s SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963).     

In another strange twist, each member is driven back to the original destination and returns home every evening, so rather than residing with Maggie, like most cults, they are only allowed periodic visits, where her mission is never fully explained.  Nonetheless, Maggie always speaks in a soft, intriguing manner, where her youthful beauty precedes her, as this may allow her to manipulatingly penetrate through predetermined wills of resistance.  Shown in a diary like day by day succession, the couple’s initial suspicion evolves over time, where after a hyper-personalized public humiliation, a kind of time traveling dressing down, Peter actually stops filming, and while he admits to having the same suspicions, believing Maggie is a fraud and a danger to the community in some as yet unanticipated way, he also seems lured under her sirenesque spell, which Lorna is quick to notice, watching a kind of interior transformation taking place.  Since so much of the film takes place in a basement, with little action to speak of, the secret of the film’s success is building dramatic tension through the personal encounters, where there is not much to go on to suggest this woman is from the future, yet she appears perfectly harmless, never revealing any ulterior motive that might raise one’s level of alertness.  And that may be what’s so confusing, as the curiosity about her motives takes place in each one of the individual person’s minds, who are also curious about one another, all wondering what the other ones think.  How can they be part of a secret cult if they’re not asked to give up individuality or anything unique, or sacrifice any part of their lives except for brief moments of their time?  She’s not asking for money or personal assets, only blood in order that she can survive, which is not so much to ask.  No one is asked to be part of a futuristic crusade to save the earth before it’s too late, though she does suggest a kind of futuristic doom is in store for everyone on an apocalyptic proportion.  

The driving force is the character of Maggie herself, as she is a curiosity.  She’s extremely well written, revealing certain personality traits, where she takes control over a communal thought process, displaying an ability to focus in on anyone who shows resistance and refuses to conform, immediately shaming them into conformity or dismisses them from the group, so they are all aligned.  Yet if she’s from the future, you’d think she’d be able to share certain aspects of people’s lives in the future, but she’s not clairvoyant, and there’s no suggestion these members are friends for life.  Everyone may have different destinations.  Instead, she seems to play upon each member’s hope that they will be a part of a better world.  The audience can maintain a healthy cynicism throughout, as so much feels omitted, like where she came from, how she got there, or why, but there’s no indication anybody’s being manipulated except in the way she expresses a commonality of thought, where perhaps she gains strength in gathering numbers, but because she continues to lead such a hermetic existence, it’s unlikely she has any grand designs, as she never leaves her basement.  There’s a plot twist that is little more than a trigger element, all designed to challenge the viewer’s perception, where Peter and Lorna come down on different sides, where each is perplexed about what to do, where their relationship is an issue as well, as their so-called solidarity comes under question.  In any relationship, there’s an element of personal trust involved.  What happens when that trust is broken?  Can it be repaired?  Is it all a misunderstanding?  This film starts questioning the heart of human relationships, while also imposing elements of conformity, which we are all subjected to.  Can that be misread?  Can we over-analyze the power and significance “others” hold over us?  One of the most mesmerizing factors is the pressure to conformity, even if it’s subconscious, which can be enormous.  Maggie is such an opaque presence, hard to define or read, where even her good or evil intentions remain carefully concealed.  The beauty of this film is it is largely defined by each audience member’s own personal expectations.  The ending remains ambiguous, stuck in a kind of philosophical limbo or no man’s land, where for all we know, the future of the world has been interminably altered—but for the better or for the worse?          

Zenith

ZENITH                                  D                    

USA  (93 mi)  2010  d:  Vladan Nikolic   

This, unfortunately, is a candidate for one of the worst films of the year, as it feels like a jumbled mess, a film that wants to be something complicated, but isn’t.  Apparently the director is a fan of puzzle films, where there’s a dark mystery underlying the order of the universe as we know it.  And in the hands of good directors, those films work because of the inventive worlds created that come alive onscreen, but placed here in the wrong writer/director’s hands, this film generates little interest or enthusiasm and represents a hopeless indulgence on the part of the director.  While it attempts to be a futuristic, sci-fi drama, made for a little more than $100,000 dollars, there is no visual conception whatsoever of the future, as there’s nothing remotely different except they’ve eliminated a good deal of their vocabulary, so our existential hero, known as Dumb Jack (Peter Scanavino), memorizes lost and forgotten words that express dread, depression, or malaise, as otherwise the world’s a happy place with no use for those words anymore.  But of course, we see scant evidence of this Happyville, instead the film is shot in vacant lots and graffiti-filled back alleys that look pretty much like today.  Even worse, the film is narrated throughout by Jack, who couldn’t be more dull and disinterested, continuously speaking in the same monotonous tone.

Apparently due to chronic epilepsy, Jack retains a natural connection to misery and pain, allowing him to see through the phony new order, developing a kind of underground status.  Trained as a doctor, Jack has become a pharmaceutical expert making his living selling drugs while visiting prostitutes on the side, yet continually whines about how bleak the world has become in the year 2044.  A second storyline develops when Jack is visited by an old friend of his father’s (Jason Robards III as Ed), a man who chased wacko conspiracy theories and lost faith in God but continued to work as a minister, becoming disillusioned and more and more disheveled until he allegedly went insane and disappeared without a trace, but left some old videotapes behind for Jack.  Jack’s world in the future is shown simultaneously with his father’s in the past, seen through the videotapes, where both are grasping to make some sense in the world. 

Ed’s world changes during a confession when a man reveals he knows about a small elite group of men who have developed plans to take over the world using a “fountain of youth” idea they call Zenith, which is outlined in a book, which in the future is no longer in existence, while Jack runs into a surprisingly literate prostitute (Ana Asensio) who uses many of the forgotten words, which he finds intriguing.  But even more intriguing is waking up in her upscale glass house on the lake where we discover her father is a hundred years old but through genetic alterations looks like he’s in his thirties.  But Jack doesn't do the math and hardly notices or pays attention until it’s too late.  The whole world is a dump and one guy lives in a palatial estate, with an intelligent and beautiful daughter, yet he never stops to take interest?  Instead, the film bogs down into unnecessary and superfluous details as he becomes fascinated by his own father’s revelations in the past, where both are digging endlessly through clues, interview after interview, uncovering one eccentric after another, plodding along while he continuously gets the shit kicked out of him, where he’s also busy tracking down yet more copies of missing tapes, eventually trying to accumulate the entire collection.

It appears his father was onto the idea that would change the world before it happened.  As clues unravel, the world of the father and son converge, where they’re each faced with surprisingly similar choices.  But both the father and son unwisely face the future alone despite having allowed themselves to become too disconnected and too far removed from the world around them to have any real impact.  Their disinterest translates into a mind numbing dullness onscreen, as they’re seen as sulking impotent outsiders rather than men of initiative or strike force capability.  Once we get to the finale, for a split second a world of possibilities does seem to open up, where a low budget film like PRIMER (2004) showed how editing alone could scramble the timeline and intensify the suspense.  But here it all feels so generic and inevitable, as the acting and the production values are so poor that there never is any underlying tension or suspense, instead an overriding mood of hopeless detachment prevails throughout this entire picture.