Tag Archives: Shawn Ashmore

Outtakes

In and Out

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Just Breathe

by Brooklyn Ewing

Given the chance to see actor Kyle Gallner in a movie, I will always flock to it. Gallner’s ability to make someone fall in and out of love with a character is something special. In Just Breathe, he brings his A game.

Directed by newcomer Paul Pompa III, Just Breathe offers up a game of cat and mouse that keeps you guessing, and yelling at the screen. 

After serving a year in jail for assault, Nick Bianco (Gallner) sets out to reunite with the love of his life, Mel (Amyri Crutchfield). He discovers that she has a new admirer named Chester (Shawn Ashmore), who also happens to be Nick’s parole officer, setting off his anger issues all over again.

Just Breathe sees William Forsythe’s return to the screen as Tony, Nick’s deadbeat dad. Forsythe brings so much life to this rough and tumble character. I loved to hate him. 

Gallner and Crutchfield are great together, and watching them makeup and breakup keeps you praying their relationship can survive Chester’s romantic, and offbeat, advances. 

Fans of traditional Lifetime movies will love this one, and it has the polish to hit the big screen. The acting is the star of this thriller, and I’m excited for folks to see it so we can all talk about how much we hate Chester together. 

Just Breathe is another Kyle Gallner classic to add to the collection. Make sure to give it a watch. 

New In Theaters

Flailing in the Dark

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Darkness Falls

by Brandon Thomas

Going into Darkness Falls, I felt upbeat and positive. Gary Cole is the heavy of the film? Sign me up! His track record as a villain (namely A Simple Plan and Pineapple Express) is pretty spotless in my book. 

Then I watched Darkness Falls. 

Cue sound of deflating balloon.

Detective Jeff Anderson (Shawn Ashmore) has become obsessed with his wife’s suicide, convinced that it was actually a murder. As Anderson delves deeper into other similar suicide cases, he finds that a father and son serial killer duo (Gary Cole and Richard Harmon) are stalking his city. 

From the opening scene, Darkness Falls leans heavily into cliche, and, if I’m being painfully honest, laziness. The filmmaking lacks any real type of energy or urgency. Director Julien Seri’s artistic choices come across as inept and amateurish, never really settling on a specific style. Seri tends to stage many shots to look cool instead of helping to tell an engaging story.

Giles Daoist’s script isn’t up to the challenge either. Rather than try something new with the genre, Darkness Falls relies on the same tired detective movie tropes. Anderson is the loose canon detective that the brass just can’t handle. And I’d be ashamed to forget mentioning just how often he slams his palms on counters and/or tables and shouts things like, “Tell me where he is?!” Truly riveting screenwriting.

The “twists” in the film are ones we’ve seen countless times before in much better films. The climax itself was probably done at least three dozen times before 1990. A few genuine “oohs” and “aahs” could’ve helped Darkness Falls be something more than a feature-length Criminal Minds episode.

Performance wise, things don’t improve. Ashmore, who’s notable for playing more squeaky-clean roles, awkwardly tries to embody the tough-as- nails detective. When he’s not chewing up scenes with over-acting, Ashmore’s performance barely registers above bored. Cole, who I usually adore, doesn’t fare much better. His papa bear serial killer lacks any kind of menace. The character is more of a homicidal used car salesman than threatening maniac. 

With its pedestrian writing, cruise control direction, and phoned-in performances, Darkness Falls spectacularly falls on its face. 

Halloween Countdown

Halloween Countdown, Day 25

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Frozen (2010)

Writer/director Adam Green has made a name  in the industry with a series of unwatchably bad boogeyman slashers brimming with genre has-beens in wink-and-nod cameos. But sandwiched somewhere between the sloppy, insider splatter comedies Hatchet and Hatchet II sits a chilly tale worth finding: Frozen.

Three friends – a girl, her boyfriend and his best friend – go skiing one Sunday afternoon. They con their way onto the lift for one last run up the hill. But they didn’t really have a ticket to ride, you see, and the guy who let them take that last lift gets called away and asks a less reliable colleague to take over. That colleague has to pee. One thing leads to another.

So, three college kids get left on a ski lift. It’s Sunday night, and the resort won’t reopen until Friday.

I give Green, who also wrote, credit for crafting a brisk and usually believable flick. Sure, it’s Open Water at a ski resort, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Green and company avoid a lot of the pitfalls you might expect, not only from this type of film, but from Green’s cannon. The characters are not hateful or contemptible; their actions rarely seem idiotic. In fact, they cave in and try something dangerous at just about the point you’re thinking to yourself: “Hey, why don’t they try shimmying across those cables?”

The most effective scene, in fact, comes just after Joe (Shawn Ashmore) begins his perilous shimmying. He stops suddenly, looks all around, and starts quickly back to the chair. At first you think he’s just an enormous wussy who couldn’t even make it five feet without retreating.

Nope. Nope. That’s not it at all.

There are some unrealistic prosthetics, but otherwise, Green can be pretty proud of this tense, freaky thriller. Just don’t get it mixed up with the one your kids like to watch. Irreparable damage might follow.