Friday 12 October 2012

Feed (2005)

Directed by Brett Leonard and written by Kieran Galvin (based on an idea by the two leads, Patrick Thompson and Alex O'Loughlin), Feed is a standard thriller in many ways but it takes things to such extremes that everything soon becomes quite horrific. It's also, sadly, a bit muddled in pretty much every other scene. The movie clearly wants to do a good job, make some interesting points and mix a lot of psychology in there with the more visceral stuff.

The basic plot sees an investigator of cybercrimes (Phillip Jackson, played by Patrick Thompson) trying to capture a twisted sicko (Michael Carter, played by Alex O'Loughlin) and put him where he belongs. The sicko runs a website that features ladies of a larger size. Nothing wrong with that if that's where it ended. Oh no, Michael keeps feeding and feeding these women and eventually starts taking bets on just when they will die. Phillip becomes more and more determined, some might say obsessive, in his attempts to catch Michael but the potential killer always seems to be one step ahead of him. AND he finds it easy to justify his actions. Hell, even his victims don't really see what he's doing wrong. He looks after them, he shows them affection and he always, always feeds them.

It's an interesting idea and it makes for, as you might expect, a number of grodd moments but Feed fails to make the most of the interesting psychology that it has going on. The fact that those being fed are so content and don't even realise that they are being slowly but surely moved towards their death.

The varying quality of the acting doesn't help. O'Loughlin is the best onscreen, possibly thanks to getting most of the best lines in the script, and Gabby Millgate is very good as the latest food lover but Patrick Thompson is pretty lousy, Jack Thompson is just as bad and Matthew Le Nevez is just . . . . . . there.

Leonard doesn't do too bad in the role of director, he's just let down by the muddled script and the uneven acting. The first 5-10 minutes contain the best moments but there's enough unpleasantness in the story to make it worth a watch for those who can stomach it (no pun intended), the ideas of the story are interesting and the movie has a fair selection of interesting covers on the soundtrack to accompany some of the startling imagery.

Not awful but it could have been so much better.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feed-DVD/dp/B000F7M6R8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350028082&sr=8-1



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