Tag: Oren Uziel

SHIMMER LAKE (2017)

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Written & Directed By: Oren Uziel
Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke
Editor: Blake Maniquis 

Cast: Benjamin Walker, Rainn Wilson, Stephanie Sigman, John Michael Higgins, Wyatt Russell, Adam Pally, Rob Corddry, Ron Livingston, Mark Randall

An inventive crime thriller told backward, reversing day by day through a week following a local sheriff’s quest to unlock the mystery of three small-town criminals and a bank heist gone wrong.

This could have easily been a story for a season-long show BIG SKY.  Even though it takes place over and not a few days.

Written and directed by noted screenwriter Oren Uziel. The film has the originality of his usual screenplays. Only here in a little more serious thriller vein. You can see why it was on the black list of 2009 (The Blacklist is a yearly list of the best-unproduced screenplays voted on by script development executives) 

The story is told backward over a week. As we start with Friday and go back to Monday to see how a bank robbery affects a small town and its citizens.

The film is better than expected especially as a Netflix original film. Before they got distracted by having big stars and budgets and seemed to still care about storytelling.

As the film is an ensemble film. It’s also a thriller with double-crosses, twists, and backstabbings that once you think you have it figured out. It surprises you again but at least as it goes along it gives you more information to see why certain characters act the way they do or why they make the decisions they do. 

It allows for plenty of quirky characters and situations. Though it does rein it in for the seriousness of everything at hand. As well as the overall dramatic implications all over.

We even get to know most of the characters involved in some way. As each day or part of the film that focuses on that day also tends to focus on the character we begin the day with and brings us into the grander puzzle of it all. Half the joy is discovering and witnessing how it all fits together. As well as the reasoning of various characters. 

The cast all rise to the occasion to keep the audience riveted and invested. If you pay attention what happens or will happen is spoken of and told in a certain way before it happens. Even though the ending is a little hard to believe. It still works as long as you believe how cold-hearted the characters can be. Even if they show warmth, humanity, and humor before. 

Stephanie Sigman as a run-down wife in mourning who can be plain one minute, aggressive the next, and sexy out of nowhere and not really having to really try. She is a versatile actress who needs to work more, especially after her dynamic debut in the movie MISS BALA.

While the film has a lived-in quality. It still lacks a certain depth it needs a little more grit.

Can admit to watching it a second time just to make sure I understood everything. It’s not a long movie but it does pack a jab and enough intrigue to keep you guessing.

Grade: C+

THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX (2018)

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Directed By: Julius Onah 
Written By: Oren Uziel 
Story By: Oren Uziel & Doug Jung 
Cinematography By: Dan Mindel 
Editor: Alan Baumgarten, Matt Evans & Rebevva Valente 

Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, Daniel Bruhl, David Oyelowo, John Ortiz, Ziyi Zhang, Donal Logue, Roger Davies, Elizabeth Debicki 

Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.

There are parts of this film remind one of the science fiction movie LIFE that came out the year before. Only that movie was somewhat original and similarly Cliche ridden but at least was more entertaining overall with impressive special effects. It also didn’t try to be as emotional and dramatic as this film. It also had one hell of an ending.

This film also has way too good a cast to be this bad and disappointing. They are diverse and international. Not necessarily due to them is his movie a failure. Just a story that believes itself more clever then it actually is. As the film even before it’s Release tried to seem like it was more a studio sci-fi film before it was figured out to be another film in connection with the CLOVERFIELD series of movies. So once figured out it added CLOVERFIELD to the title. In the end it plays more like all hype.

The film essentially plays too basic and familiar so you get the sense you have seen all of this before.

The film being tied to a bigger series of films. That this is more a prequel of sorts that could be a sequel to anything. That is how devoid of personality and material it is. Where most of the film feels like filler for a few certain scenes that tie it together and really are what the movie is about.

Though more built around actress Gugu Mbetha-Raw character. No one in the cast comes through as memorable. Except Chris O’Dowd and that is only because he is more the comedic relief and is involved in one of the more impressive special effects sequences. The later being the bigger reason I remember him.

It’s a shame that a sci-fi movie that has a bigger than usual cast of minorities is so basic and non descript. Even the direction and production design doesn’t seem inspired.

The film ends up feeling like a hodgepodge or ideas and plots of other movies. Even by the ending it feels like this was a general sci-fi movie. That had an added ending to tie it to the CLOVERFIELD universe. As at least the other films in that universe added a different and original point of view to the typical alien invasion film. This feels more expected. Even if at first it tries to stay focused on the science more than anything.

Do these film not exist in that universe. It even trying to do anything different or special. The film isn’t even scary it’s more dialogue then anything at first. It’s also a movie that tries to be emotionally manipulative late in the game after an initial set-up and doesn’t come off as stylish at all.

This seems like a film that will play on the syfy channel for a while. As it seems like a bigger budgeted version of a film they would produce only without an exploitive angle.

This is definitely the weakest of the three films

GRADE: F