Why So Blu?

Encapsulated Movie Reviews – Four New Indie Titles

Hitting local film fests and book reviews hard (that are all on the horizon!), there was only time for four little indie flick sneak peaks this week.  A sexy and sensual forbidden love story with serious heat, a harrowing kidnapping terror tale outing that has equal parts strange and sci-fi, a contained catastrophe where everyone in the room is packing and a fish out of water cop caper with a muscle bound man at the helm thrill the themes of the crop below.  Check out all four of the Encapsulated Movie Reviews that include Below Her Mouth, Rupture, Free Fire and Black Rose.

BELOW HER MOUTH
(Gunpowder & Sky)

This striking story of a love affair between two women, one single and the other engaged, not only has incredible chemistry with leads Erika Linder and Natalie Krill, but also a barrage of steamy sensual sex scenes that feel incredibly authentic.  Meaning love, lust and passion run rampant through their raw and real connection and leaves the audience feeling like they’ve invaded precious private moments.  Of course the narrative could have been more complicated and convoluted with too many outside characters and consequences, but writer Stephanie Fabrizi and Director April Mullen wisely let emotion and desire guide their characters here and as such Below Her Mouth becomes all the more beautiful.

RUPTURE
(AMBI Media Group)

Only the director who helmed the savory sick and twisted S&M flick Secretary could have made such an equally sadistic and satisfying terror tale like Rupture.  Taking kidnapping to a whole other level, the film features Girl Tattoo alum Noomi Rapace as a struggling single mom who gets taken and detained in the name of some very vicious and eyebrow raising experiments.  Filmmaker Steven Shainberg adds plenty of suspense and sci-fi to keep genre fans happy, but also thankfully adds a pinch of perversion to keep things even more interesting.  Topped off with some great visuals, terrific twists and turns and notable side work by the likes of The Shield’s Michael Chiklis and nutburger extraordinaire Peter Stormare (is he the go-to guy for all things odd?!), Rupture cleverly cracks cinematic conventions.

FREE FIRE
(A24)

Unlike some of the other flicks by filmmaker Ben Wheatley that successfully merge various genres with outstanding results (see Kill List and Sightseers!), Free Fire has some serious theme blending issues.  Meaning the mix of comedy (Sharlto Copley never met a wacko character he couldn’t make more flamboyant!), action (there are bullet hits galore!) and drama plays out in this predictable single space story scenario with a rather choppy style and sadly makes for one discombobulating cinematic siege experience.  Not that there aren’t a few good bits of all of the above, they just forgo a fluent film flow.

BLACK ROSE
(ITN Distribution)

After ripping its beginning from the Harry Callahan movie playbook (the opening heist and conclusion is straight out of The Enforcer!), Black Rose then blatantly copies the fish-out-of-water Russian/American scenario from Walter Hill’s Red Heat and it just goes downhill from there.  The action is lame (stop with the CGI bullet hits man!), the characters contrived (lead man and film director Alexander Nevsky’s got nothing on Hill and makes Schwarzenegger’s work as Ivan Danko seem like method acting!) and the story sub-par (casting here gives away key plot points!) – even a vase filled with Evian couldn’t make this wilted movie flower stand and deliver.