All Hell Broke Loose-2009
Director : Chris Forbes
Producer(s): Chris Forbes, Richard Kelly
Writer(s): Chris Forbes, Jim Hilton
Rating : Pg-13
Cinematographer(s) : Michael Hennessy, Tomme Hilton, Chris Forbes
Genre : Western/action/adventure
Running Time : 90 mins
Cast: David Carradine, Jim Hilton, Scotty Sparks, Stan Fink, Tripp Courtney
First off folks this movie is a dragfest from start to finish, its heavily padded with characters that don't even make-anysense to the story-line this was simply add-ins to help make this movie a feature film which alot of filmakers will do this but in this one its done to death....... Now with that out of the way lets move on. I picked this western film up just because I'm a big fan of the late great David Carradine, and after watching this film well........... Folks, this is truely, one of the worst western movie's I've seen in years, for many reasons and I love westerns, including indie films. But this movie is just down-right horrible from every aspect, acting, continuity, the script and cinematography, right down to set design. The directing in this film, or what there is of it...just sucks. The acting pace is so slow and dragging its almost mindless at times. Its so full of western cliche's and the dialog looks to be copied straight from older westerns and dropped right into this film for some sort of substance, and while I thought the film's saving face would be seeing the late great David Carradine's marshall character stop the badass bank-robbing Wade Gang complete with some badass action sequences, again it just did-not-happen. Hell, Mr. Carradine looks down and out in his scenes, just like he's given up on the whole production.
And the filmakers really tried hard to ride on Carradines name even dedicating the film to Carradine's memory and his photo is front and center in all the Art work and advertising, problem with this is Carradine is nothing more than a glorified cameo role in the film and the filmakers really tried to stretch his scenes to make it appear that Carradine is a larger character role in the movie, which neither saves the film from being boring as hell or even like-able, however for the sake of some credit, the film does attempt to serve us up a great western hero with the character of Will Drayton (Jim Hilton, who gives a decent performance), A former Civil War soldier, turned gunfighter, as a failed rancher Drayton finds himself caught between the lawmen and crooks he left behind when he was hired as a sharpshooter to pay off his land debt, by gunning down the same outlaws he used to ride with.
Now if you think "hell" was going to break loose in the form of western excitement in this film......your dead wrong partner. This movie is a complete dragfest, and when you think its dragged out enough ......it draggs on even more. In this recent outing from North American Pictures which is the third film I've seen of theirs this past year. This one is by-far the worst yet. In fact, I fell asleep in a few scenes and had to rewind the movie just to keep up with what was happening, hell I even took a smoke break and........I and don't even smoke!
To its credit however, the film does pick up slightly as it slowly crawls towards its conclusion. But the action sequences are so dull by now you just want the movie to be over. Nothing about this film at all feels fresh or original and even more intriguingly, you get the sense that those involved in the project did'nt even care about it, (its just that obvious), This movie was made by an unkown director to me (Chris Forbes) and from what I've seen of this production, he will remain an unknown for quite some time. However there is some truth to the films title, since nothing really Broke Loose, in the movie,........and Hell nobody cares, Atlest not this reviewer. I don't recomend this movie unless your just starving for a newer western to see and have some extra cash to blow. I actually gave this film a two star rating, but gave an extra star just out of respect for the late great David Carradine.
3/10 Stars