Prime Time: Landmine Goes Click (2015)

I'll admit it, I thought that Landmine Goes Click was a movie with a title referring to some major metaphor, a situation ready to explode once people placed themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nope, my bad, it's a film in which someone actually steps on a landmine, and that is a pivotal part of the plot.

Sterling Knight plays Chris, a young man travelling with Alicia (Spencer Locke) and her boyfriend, Daniel (Dean Geyer), through some isolated countryside. Unfortunately for Chris and Alicia, Daniel knows that the two of them have slept together. So he arranges for Chris to step on a landmine. He then leaves Chris and Alicia alone, helpless, and waiting for what seems like an inevitable, deadly, explosion. Things start to look up when a figure, Ilya (Kote Tolordava), appears, but it soon becomes apparent that Ilya may not be interested in helping them.

With a screenplay by Adrian Colussi, who worked on the story with Lloyd S. Wagner and director Levan Bakhia, this is a dark and twisted revenge thriller that gets things wrong from the very start, makes things worse through the middle section, and somehow ends just as badly as it all begins. 

Mired in misogyny and pointlessness, a criticism that you could level at other (but often much better) films like this, Landmine Goes Click could have been better if anyone took a moment to somehow reframe the main plot points. Either underlining how disproportionate the reaction from Daniel is, making Ilya a more mysterious figure, or leaving more space for the third act to feel more organic and well-developed, any of these three things could have improved the movie, and all three together could have REALLY improved things.

It doesn’t help that the cast aren’t strong enough to help detract from the problems in the script. Tolordava is the worst, and I cannot figure out whether or not his performance could have been helped by better dialogue. Locke has the most thankless of the three roles, which is a shame because she is the best of the three leads. As for Knight, nothing he does ever feels quite right, whether he is being cheery and friendly, angry, shocked, or quite unhinged. Again, however, it is difficult to tell just how much these actors are hampered by the awful script.

Aside from the poor script and performances, it’s worth mentioning that nothing else manages to stand out in a positive way. From the direction and editing to the cinematography and pacing, mediocrity is the best you can hope for to distract you from the awfulness. So your best bet is, like any area where landmines are set, to stay as far away from this as possible.

3/10

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Netflix And Chill: Mad Genius (2017)

I knew I was in trouble even before I pressed play on Mad Genius, a film that it states on IMDb had the original title of Mindhack: #savetheworld (urgh, god help me). The whole thing, from the central idea to the poster design, had an air of Mr. Robot about it, most probably without the talent and resources that made that show so gripping and successful.

Let me run the one-line synopsis by you and see if you roll your eyes as hard as I did. "A young mad genius attempts to 'hack the human mind' in order to fix himanity" There you go. That's the central idea, with Chris Mason in the central role of the mad genius, named Mason, and Scott Mechlowicz as an alter-ego named Sawyer (and he's very aware of his alter-ego status, this isn't a case of "Scotty doesn't know").

A mad genius trying to sort out the problems of society. An imaginary figure helping him along. A powerful nemesis, in the shape of a man named Eden (played by Faran Tahir). Writer-director Royce Gorsuch certainly doesn't do himself any favours in his solo feature debut. Not only can he not help himself from running so close to the Mr. Robot vibe, he also cannot back up any of his ideas with enough capability to fully realise them onscreen.

As is often the way with indie film-makers who don't want to let their ideas be constrained by the realities of their level of film-making, Mad Genius has a few elements that have potential, were they not constrained by the realities of the level of film-making. Things get a lot worse by the third act, mainly because Gorsuch has misplaced faith in his own intelligence, seeming to think that he is providing a thought-provoking and satisfying finale when it's just a complete mess, and a mess that never engages viewers (who I suspect will, more often than not, be wondering why they haven't just opted to rewatch Mr. Robot instead).

It's often unfair to rate a movie for what it isn't. You should rate it for what it is. I agree with that, for the most part. It's impossible to rate certain movies on their own, however, when they do so much to invite unfavourable comparisons. And Gorusch, whether deliberately or not, invites those comparisons with every minute of this film.

The cast are decidedly okay, although Mason struggles to convince as the titular mad genius. Mechlowicz has a lot of fun, Tahir is a believable threat, and Spencer Locke brightens things up slightly as a young woman named Sawyer.

I like to be pleasantly surprised by movies. Trying not to have any expectations can be hard, but going in with certain expectations and having them proved inaccurate is always a pleasant experience. This film was not a pleasant experience. I'd suggest simply avoiding it until it disappears further and further beneath an ever-growing pile of better films you can watch instead.

3/10

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