COLTON Trailer 1016 from Kevin McKeon on Vimeo. Directed by: Kevin McKeon Written by: Kevin McKeon Genre: Drama, Thriller 86 min |
COLTON ( 2016 )
"Colton" begs to be a larger film - a grand film where the weirdly normal characters could weave their blankets of paranoia into a great conspiracy flick. Unfortunately, the elements of the film that are truly good, get buried beneath the never ending layers of thriller cliches and some subtle attempts at humor, via the character personalities at the start of the film. It tells the story of a regular man as he gets tangled in the web of hate filled conspiracy babble. Most of the time it's completely ridiculous, such as the unidentifiable "Ixnax" who starts the entire journey moving. Aside from being hard to understand, why the voice changer? Right off the bat it simply felt like it was a gimmick. Especially when you realize the main character never actually meets up with him, well, not really anyway. If the two were never destined to meet face to face why go through the trouble? "Colton" suffers from wanting far more than this micro budget film can handle, without a larger budget. But, and I stress this, this movie isn't a complete wash. Not by a long shot. Yes, it can get pretty wacko. However, contained within are some well written and acted dialog sequences that although can border on the absurd at times, other times they make complete sense. Even hate groups need a grain of truth to really get the ball rolling, and that's where this film earns it's stripes. Once you get past the absurdity of it, such as a man wrapped like a mummy to keep himself an unknown individual, (wouldn't the headlights be enough?) there really is some great stuff here and by the final act, I will admit I was hooked. You don't always need to be perfect to entertain. "Colton," again, proves that statement.
I'm not interested in writing about the production elements of this film. It's an independent, very low budget production. Writing about this would be like kicking a hornets nest. Nobody would change their mind about this film no matter what I jotted here. Let's just say that I've seen much, much worse. I've seen much worse on films with million dollar budgets. For what it is, "Colton" has nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to the production itself. Some of the acting is another story. I'd be daft not to recognize that having no budget means you take what you can get. As such a case, "Colton" does feature some scripted, hollow elements. I was pleasantly surprised however, when I came across numerous outstanding scenes. Scenes such as the meltdown of Colton himself, unleashed on his friend for driving his girl around town, nicely demonstrate that even here, in the low budget world, some real talent exists. Mainly the cast of this film seem to excel during the dramatic moments of the movie. The most important ones. This easily makes the less memorable ones tolerable, and I'm massively grateful for the excellent diversions. What can one do to start changing things? That seems to be the underlying question here. Is it by sincere debate or radical terrorism? Who represents the true enemy? Is it our politicians or the sorry few that get brainwashed into extreme acts? Don't shoot the messenger is a great sentiment unless the messenger is the terrorist. And then, is he really the terrorist or just the brainwashed messenger? What about behavior changes? Should family and loved ones notice? How should they act? Should they become paranoid as well, thinking their loved one will become a terrorist? These questions are all alluded to in "Colton." Some outright addressed and some left to be thought about in the shadows. As for Kevin McKeon's film itself, it remains a slightly flawed and less than perfect movie; but still completely watchable and easy to be enjoyed. |
