REVERSAL is a Blood-Fueled Revenge Film That Loses Steam - Sundance 2015 Review

Director J.M Cravioto has produced a low-budget thriller aimed at making its leading woman hellbent on revenge and restitution. Reversal is a blood-fueled grindhouse revenge film that starts off with all the right elements, but, unfortunately, quickly loses its momentum and ended in a way that that left me thinking, "WTF?"

Chained to a wall and barely alive, Eve (Tina Ivlev) quietly waits for her brooding and malevolent kidnapper Phil (Richard Tyson) to walk into the room. With quick thinking and a massive brick, this rambunctious shitstorm of a situation begins.

Starting in a way that you would personally want most disturbing kidnapping genre movies to end, Eve takes hold of a horrible situation and quickly reverses the tides, going from helpless captive to a gun-toting blonde chick on a rampage! Failing in an attempt to escape the situation, she comes across pictures of other girls in similar circumstances. She quickly fashions an animal grasper made of household items, captures Phil, and reverses the situation. Now taking on the role of a mad vigilante, she strikes a horrible deal with Phil and forcefully makes him lead her to the locations of the other captive women. Sadly, shit predictably hits the fan, the story unfolds redundantly, and it's filled with a combination of bad dialogue, sub-par pacing, and loud noises that brings the unwelcome assurance that you will forget this movie.

Tina Ivlev did a fantastic job at portraying such a tough and intimidating woman. She tackled the role and quickly made you invested in her character. Richard Tyson played quite the creepy villain. The guy had a menacing voice that sounded like a sub-par Mandarin impression, but he successfully crafted a presence that made you want him to die. I wasn’t totally displeased with the cinematography of the film. There were some fun shots that added to the intensity that they were conveying throughout the film. But for the love of everything, put a cap on the amount of found footage.  It was thrown around throughout the film as a feeble attempt to make Eve feel like a real person. It may have been okay to start the film that way, but it quickly became repetitive and annoying. When a film is loaded with bad found footage, its usually the result of lazy writing, harsh deadlines, and a limited budget. I have a feeling this film was plagued with them all.

What troubled me the most about Reversal was its failed attempt to portray the true ruthlessness and workings of human trafficking. While there were some inclinations to the known fact that this horrible thing is happening all around us, it failed at tackling the true horrors of it. Instead, it completely fabricated a vile world of shoddy fiction, which left it feeling vacuous and empty.

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