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SideShawBob88
Reviews
Mercy (2022)
Mercy
I really loved this. It's a dark almost "Walter Mitty meets Taxi Driver" psychological profile with an ending that could be interpreted as real or a fantasy of a desperate but meek and ineffectual woman who's lost in her own prefrontal cortex. Everything is bubbling just beneath the surface of Samantha Rose Valletta's quiet bespectacled face. The performance is nicely modulated and subtle. The character could have easily been a caricature of a Paul Schrader hero, but director Dan Rosario and company keep it grounded and boiling through to the end when things begin to really kick off.
Great camera work, great editing, performances, just wonderful!
The Killers Next Door (2021)
Straw Dogs meets True West
A gripping thriller that's reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" and Sam Shepard's brothers in "True West".
David Pridemore makes an excellent "love to hate" villain and Michael Locicero as the more morally ambiguous brother trying to escape the gravitational pull of his maniac sibling adds a nice unexpected twist to what could have been two dimensional characters.
Rosanna Jimenez and Sean Carmichael play the besieged targets of the killers well. By the end, you're rooting for them to end the craziness and create some needed justice in those woods in New Hampshire.
Overall, some good performances and solid cinematography make this a fun watch with some suspense and even some unexpected laughs along the way.