Prime Time: Exhibit A (2007)

I had this found footage movie recommended to me by a friend. Don't let the same thing happen to you. In fact, just consider how much you really trust your friends.

I am being silly, of course. It was a recommendation I accepted willingly, and with enthusiasm, but I am going to balance things out now by warning others away from what I view as a highly flawed, and disappointing, viewing experience.

Bradley Cole is Andy King, an oddball head of a family unit of four (his wife is Sheila, played by Angela Forrest, his typical teen son is Joe, played by Oliver Lee, and his daughter, Judith, played by Brittany Ashworth). Everything is looking up. Andy is up for a promotion, which means the family will move into a new home, and their finances will receive a nice boost. If all goes well. Meanwhile, Judith is filming everything as she processes some confusing feelings and Andy constantly tests the patience of his loved ones with his constant mugging and attempts to make others laugh, no matter the cost.

Written and directed by Dom Rotheroe, developing an idea by Darren Bender, Exhibit A just doesn't manage to become really interesting or thrilling, and that's due to a number of reasons. First of all, the actual title and imagery used to advertise the film keys viewers in to the fact that something is going to go horribly wrong. Second, the script isn't good enough to distract anyone from the obvious plotting en route to a disappointingly predictable final act. It's also yet another one of these movies that doesn't really give a good enough reason for someone to be using the camera to record every main moment in their life.

Third, and separate from the other two issues, is the varying quality of the acting. Although nobody completely stinks up the screen, nobody feels as natural as they should. Cole is especially jarring, mainly as he is the focus of so many scenes, and has to carry the film on his shoulders, but Ashworth and Lee are hit and miss, while Forrest is the most believable of them all, as the wife who has to be the responsible adult of the household. Even then, however, the script requires her to be more oblivious to some obvious signs of things going amiss than any average person.

It's not a bad idea, especially with the very firm grounding in reality that is there for the first third of the film, but Exhibit A isn't entertaining enough to make up for its failings, and isn't gripping enough to make up for the lack of entertainment.

3/10

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