Story
Radius comes from the minds
of the writing/directing team Caroline Labrèche & Steeve Léonard. It tells the story about a man named Liam
(Diego Klattenhoff) who wakes from a car crash with amnesia. As he travels through
what appears to be the US Midwest it becomes apparent anyone who comes within a
50-foot radius of him dies instantly. He
eventually comes across a woman named Jane (Charlotte Sullivan) who can assist
him with his affliction. The film’s
strength is its masterful execution of the tense moments where Liam’s powers
will cause devastation despite his attempts to prevent it. The early and slow pacing of the film surely
lays the groundwork for pay offs that are worth waiting for later on in the
narrative. It culminates with a brilliant and I would say surprising twist in
the last act between our “heroes” Liam and Jane. The source of Liam’s abilities is a rather
hackneyed trope. This trope can be
forgiven because of the strength of the tense moments and story concept. Radius makes for an enjoyable film that keeps
the viewer interested from beginning to end.
Cinematography
The relatively static camera
by cinematographer Simon Villeneuve is very by the numbers and somewhat fails
to do the story justice. It’s as if he’s
trying to portray a blank canvas as a busy mural. The moments where he takes the camera off the
tripod are rare but enjoyable. The most
crucial part of these moments are how subtle they are, which is a testament to
any good cinematographer. He also lights
the set fairly well. One might suspect
budget and time constraints prevented it from being a truly visual work of
art. It’s a problem even the greatest
filmmakers deal with.
Editing
The blue tint for the outdoor
scenes could burn the retinas but that isn’t a failing of the
cinematographer. The responsibility for
color correction choice falls to the editor Steeve Léonard. Color correction is an issue all films have
to deal with now due to the affordability of DSLRs. The switch in lenses while shooting different
takes within the same scene will cause a color to change and make film scenes visually
inconsistent. Therefore the film editor
has to color correct scenes to match.
Given the beautiful landscape of where they filmed, allowing more natural
color to shine through would have been preferred. This blue tint did not hurt the story
though. His cuts were solid, some of his
actor’s takes are questionable (more on that later). As stated previously the way tension builds
is done remarkably well. That’s a
testament to solid writing, directing and good editing. The outdoor sound mixing could have been
better but it’s a very minor distraction.
Acting
Brett Donahue’s portrayal as
Sam is the breakout performance in this film.
He’s consistent and believable in his presentation. I’d love to see more of his work in the
future.
The chemistry between Diego
Klattenhoff and Charlotte Sullivan could have used some fine-tuning. At certain moments it felt like the actors
weren’t performing in sync with one another, as if they filmed their scenes on
entirely different days.
Klattenhoff & Sullivan on
their own certainly have talent and even within the film prove at moments they
can hit their acting cues in believable ways. Their inconsistent performances as a couple, is really the
responsibility of the film directors to get right. Labrèche & Léonard
definitely tell a cohesive visual story that works well without dialogue,
future projects should focus more on actor performances.
Overall the film is well worth
watching and really enjoyable. It also
has a rewatchablilty factor by making the viewer want to go back and see how
all the little snippets connect to the awesome twist at the end.
Written by
Joseph Ammendolea
Owner/President
“I Like To Play With Toys” Productions®
