Short Film Review: Spilled Paint (2019)

The plot of the Spilled Paint short film begins as an old-school jazz tune - full of beat and with rising tension. In the movie, the audience is quickly introduced to Patrick, a painter, who is very unpleasantly (even though not yet extremely violently) questioned by a crime boss. The painter made a mistake: he borrowed $10,000 from the same criminal and now it is time to pay up.

Of course, he also made an additional mistake which has been ongoing for some time: he is disorganized, unable to focus and on moments, not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

But, he gets a break. The boss will give him a week to get the money. Naturally, with nowhere to turn, the painter realizes his only option is to create a masterpiece of end up very hurt or even worse.

Two Paragraph Review: Dragged Across Concrete (2018)

I really loved Bone Tomahawk and I didn't like Brawl in Cell Block 99. Now, there is the new film by S. Craig Zahler and this is his biggest undertaking so far. Featuring a cast led by the always good Mel Gibson, Zahler did his own version of the Poliziotteschi genre (don't worry, I never heard about it either). In the movie, the vibe of the entire plot is an almost intangible mesh of personal drama, background political commentary and quick bursts of almost senseless violence.

This is something that on moments works great and sometimes fails completely, especially because of the weird script Zahler wrote. Here, the idea of repeated dialogue lines, like "being smarter by a yard post" and similar stuff reminded me of film school student trying to write like Tarantino. The presence of these dorky and completely unnecessary elements is hard to figure out but they often break the immersion and any weird-but-good magic this director can clearly deal out to its audience. Still, no one could argue that for a neo-noir film Dragged Across Concrete doesn't cover its genre basis pretty well.