By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Jeremy Thomas
Starring: Elle May | Jaden Holle | Jeremy Thomas | John Knight | Katie Webber
Country: canada
Year: 2008
Running time: 109
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1113727/
Jason says: “It is a bit worrisome when, prior to a festival screening, the director is offering what can seem like excuses or explanations – they had less money than the short film that precedes it, but it is long for a zero-budget indie, there’s a big plot twist in the middle, etc., etc. If you believe in your movie, let it stand, I figure. I’m pretty sure I still would have enjoyed THE END without my expectations being managed.
“I admit, it may have helped a little. The opening is kind of clunky; we seem to hear about what high school teacher Joseph Rickman (Jeremy Thomas) did sixteen years ago in every other line of dialog before finally getting into details. Back then, as a teenager, he found a missing girl on sheer intuition, and he’s starting to get weird hunches again, seeing a strange robed, limping man in a tragedy mask who may be responsible for a rash of recent kidnappings. Joseph’s long-time friend, Det. Clara
Wilkie (Ella May) worries about him, but is willing to take whatever help she can get with the case – even after Joseph recognizes and shares the unorthodox source of his intuition.
“To let that cat out of the bag would be a shame, and I’m not going to do it, but it is one of the rare mid-thriller twists that makes the movie funnier rather than more grim. It’s clever and relatively unexpected based upon what had come before, but does make the things that might have seemed irritating earlier on go down easier in retrospect. That doesn’t mean the film completely transforms into a comedy; the characters still take the mystery story seriously, and what is funny to the audience is
in fact disturbing to the people within the film.
“That’s a pretty neat trick on the part of Thomas, who writes and directs as well as playing the lead. He lays out some of the ideas he’s going to be playing with early, having Joseph lecture his English class on the necessity of shared experience to confirm one’s beliefs and the question of whether free will exists or whether the human mind is a deterministic, chemical computer. Once he has the plot twist, he seems to have fun elaborating on it, finding new ways to push things just a bit further as the movie goes on. The climactic set piece is also pretty well-constructed.
“As an actor, Thomas isn’t bad at all. At times, he seems a little artificial, but at others he seems real in an ‘I’d probably be a bit awkward in this situation, too’ manner. Ella May is much the same, and the two of them are fun to watch together. It’s a bit of a step down to the supporting characters, but it’s a lot less painful than it is in other low-budget independents, because Thomas has done a good job of working around his limitations.
“It would be nice if the very end of the movie worked a bit better. It’s clever, but somewhat underwhelming considering the build-up to it. Still, Jeremy Thomas has managed to make something nifty out of not very much in the way of resources. 4cats (note: This is after applying any Chlotrudis exchange rates for Canadian films :-))
“Seen 15 July 2008 at Concordia Theatre J.A. de Seve (Fantasia Festival)”