Title: White Wall
Directed by: James Boss
Starring: James Boss, Gary Kohn and Michael Teh
In a post apocalyptic world, a virus has wiped out a large quantity of the world’s population. The child survivors were sent to internment camps and a large wall built to quarantine the non-infected. Years later, Shawn (James Boss), one of the survivors finds the body of a friend from the internment camp.
Let me sum this whole film up for you – martial arts movie, bankable story on paper, bad acting. I was bored throughout the entire 91 minute duration of the film. Not even the “martial arts fighting” were good enough to hold my interest. The audience is forced to wait over 30 minutes in order to see some action, and then another 30+ minutes to see another one and they lasted maybe 1-2 minutes. Dryden, the Jewish guy teaching the Shawn, the Asian guy how to knife fight was kind of original, and if that became the focal point of the story, it may have made the film better. I think there was a love story in there somewhere, but it was completely unnecessary. Had I not known the movie was to take place in the distant future, it didn’t make any difference to the finished product.
I don’t know if it was a ploy to turn the sound down as low as possible in order to force the audience to pay attention, but it was damned frustrating having to turn the volume up high and back down immediately when some action happened or the score swelled so not to blow out my speakers. Having your actors speak in low tones does not make them serious or intense; their acting still sucks and they’re harder to hear. James Boss, if you knew you were going to put this film on blu-ray, why not spring for some subtitles? You’re excluding the hearing impaired audience, and they might give you a nicer review.
I will give one positive/backhanded compliment – the cinematography was very good, but when the movie is this boring, it’s hardly a bonus.
Story – 1 out of 5
Acting – 1 out of 5
Cinematography – 4 out of 5
Total rating – 1 out of 5
Reviewed by JM Willis
