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SPOTLIGHT
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“Swaine” is the latest Lucas Jameson project here at HTG. The film was definitely interesting for an action film. Now on with the review. PLOT: The plot consists of some sort of hitman, Callista Swaine (Summer Altice) who is sent to kill a big cartel drug family run by Sierra Raneses (Angelina Jolie) and her brother, Ellis (Colin Farrell). Well actually, Sierra basically runs it all as Ellis is just a basic party boy who loves women, drugs and booze. Sierra’s main sidekick is Danita (Roselyn Sanchez), who is like her partner in crime. Swaine’s mission is to bring down the cartel and to also eliminate Sierra. Swaine meets Maria Sanchez (Melissa Tkautz) who basically is her inside woman into the Mexican underground. Swaine parties at the Raneses mansion and eventually gets Ellis to bring her back to his house. While he is intoxicated, she searches the mansion for insight on Sierra. Soon Sierra catches onto this and goes after Swaine. The ending of the film has some great standoffs and shootouts, resulting in Swaine completing her mission of destroying the cartel and eliminating Sierra. The plot is pretty interesting, but it still is not without flaws, the plot could have definitely been executed better. FINAL PLOT GRADE: 70/100 DIALOGUE: I think that the dialogue in this film is a lot stronger than a lot of dialogue in Lucas’ other films. The dialogue was well used with the “cool” feeling of the movie. There is also some great comedic dialogue used with the film. I think that some of Ellis’ dialogue as his party boy part was pretty over the top and it could have been better. The dialogue when Swaine is speaking though is well written and well executed. I think that Lucas should write most of his dialogue like this film, he could learn something from it. It isn’t some of the best dialogue ever at HTG, but for Lucas, this is pretty good. FINAL DIALOGUE GRADE: 75/100 CHARACTERS: The characters were pretty well written. I think however that Maria Sanchez as the ditsy blonde could have been written way better, or maybe just keep her out of the film and have someone else take her part. We also really don’t get to see enough of Hassler (Delroy Lindo) and his character could have been used more in the film as his character was pretty interesting. Ellis is a little over the top as the bad boy, but it is easy to buy Sierra as the drug cartel owner and overly violent female. Swaine however is the most interesting character, and she should be in a film named after her. She’s pretty interesting and I really hope to see her in a sequel. Overall, the characters of the film weren’t great, but they weren’t bad either. FINAL CHARACTERS GRADE: 75/100 CASTING: I actually liked the DVD release cast of this film almost more than I liked this one. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out the extra miscellaneous part of the website. I think that casting Angelina Jolie in the role of Sierra just because she’s hot is unjustified. She also isn’t hot, she’s slutty hot, which is not hot. I also think that Summer Altice as Swaine should have been top billing, I don’t care if two bigger names are ahead of her. She should have been top billing. I also think that someone else besides Melissa Tkautz would have made a better Maria. We really don’t need to see this playboy looking like creature playing her. Even Bobbi Billard would have been a bad choice. These women aren’t even good actresses, just sluts. It’s always nice to see Delroy Lindo cast in a film though and he fits his role well here. Overall, this isn’t the worst casting, but it could have been way better. FINAL CASTING GRADE: 65/100 PACING: The pacing wasn’t too bad. The action scenes were set up and executed nice but the film moves by too fast to get to the action though. I wanted more character development time, but we’re thrust into loads of action sequences and slick sexual like scenery, which a lot of that could have been cut out. However, I liked the pacing more than a lot of other films here at HTG. I’ve seen some really bad pacing. However, the pacing of this film could have been way better. Slow down the writing to get to the action sequences. A good action film should never just be about the action and a lot of times with this film, that’s the way it feels. The pacing of the film though still deserves a passing grade. FINAL PACING GRADE: 60/100 ADVERTISING: The advertising of this film was pitch perfect. I thought that the film would have actually done better at the box office because of its great advertising. The film has been advertised for a long time before its release, which I love. We got to see some amazing pictures months before the films release and all the posters were incredibly amazing. I loved them. I think that the website was also very well made and the advertising couldn’t have been any better. I think that a lot of advertising campaigns could learn at thing or two from this film. Lucas to me is the best advertiser here at HTG. He makes the best posters. FINAL ADVERTISING GRADE: 100/100 WRITING: The overall writing of the film was pretty good. I noticed some spelling and grammatical errors, but not too many. There are flaws in the writing, just like almost any film, but the writing of this film makes for one hell of an experience at the movies. Lucas really is either a hit or a miss in his writing and with this film, its definitely a hit. I think that people are going to remember this experience at HTG for a long time to come. This film is a slick action movie with good writing all in the hands of Lucas Jameson. FINAL WRITING GRADE: 80/100 FINAL OVERALL GRADE: 75/100 The plot consists of femme fatale, Callista Swaine who is sent to kill a big cartel drug family run by Sierra Raneses and her brother, Ellis. Well actually, Sierra basically runs it all as Ellis is just a basic party boy who loves women, drugs and booze. Swaine’s mission is to bring down the cartel and to also eliminate Sierra. Swaine meets Maria Sanchez who basically is her inside woman into the Mexican underground. Calista’s plan is to seduce party boy Eliis into taking her back to his place. They wind up at a wild party at the Raneses mansion and eventually knocks out Ellis. While he is unconscious, she searches the mansion for insight on Sierra. Sierra finds out and this sets off the feud between she and Swaine. Sierra at one point gets fed up with Ellis, and ends up just offing him for her own personal gain. It all ends in a great action sequence where of course Calista ends up on top. It also leaves room for a possible sequel. The script is by far my favorite to come from Opticon Productions and I think really nailed the nature of the Mexican Underground. Plus, any time you can see two super hot women in a fifteen minute gun fight the audience wins. I expected a boring run of the mill action movie but what I got was a smart, entertaining, somewhat humorous film that had surprisingly memorable scenes. Lucas is starting to come into his own here at HTG and this film in my opinion shot him off onto the A-List. If I have any complaints it would be that at times the dialogue leaned a bit towards the cheesy side. Especially, in conversations between Calista and Melissa. I’m also not a fan in the killing off of Melissa. I think it would have been a nice thing to include an evolution in Swaine’s character if she kept just one friend in her life. The cast followed a formula and was not shy about it. Lucas wanted to put as many hot people in one film as possible and give them my two favorite things, hardcore drugs and heavy artillery. However, putting Summer Altice in the leading role was risky. It paid off financially, but I think many hot actresses could have pulled off this particularly easy role. The only role that really took any acting talent would be Ellis, that part was nailed by Colin Farrell who really didn’t have to act. He just played his real persona. Score: 78/100 Swaine is the latest film from Lucas Jameson and Opticon Productions. 21st Century Cat released the film to the public. This piece is an original work with a decent concept for an action flick. When viewing action, though, the plot is seldom a work of art that rivals with dramatic independent films. Despite not being quite top notch in terms of thought-provoking storytelling, great action sequences generally make up for it all . Like all action flicks, these are seen as "Guilty Pleasures." Sadly, Swaine falls short here. Swaine is a nice warm bath of a movie. It's the sort of movie that you would linger on if it happened to be playing on HBO. You might not watch all of it, but you'd probably watch some part of it no matter how many times you've seen it. It gets away with a lot because of its fun, breezy nature. You can forgive its simplistic plot and the fact that it doesn't have a lot of substance. You can forgive the fact that the dialogue occasionally sounds wrong and brings you out of the movie's world. You can even forgive the fact that many of its characters (and the actors who play them) are on the wooden side. Almost every character, even the title character herself, suffered from underdevelopment and lack of definition. If this movie had better, more unique characters (Gosh, I feel like a whiny Bishop) it would have easily been elevated from above average action movie to really good action movie. I say this because the one good character in here was Hassler (Delroy Lindo) and he was quite a bit of fun. I swear that the movie could have been about him. Lindo utilizes the role in a way that distinguishes him as the only actor in the movie that gets by with more than pulse. I probably should do a quick summarization because critics are supposed to do that, but it's hardly necessary. The plot isn't nearly as important as the execution. The title femme, Callista Swaine, was sent to destroy a large family run cartel and eliminate its leader, Sierra Raneses. Sierra has a useless party-hardy brother played by Colin Farrell that's so generic he's barely worth mentioning except that Swaine's plan is to infiltrate the cartel, seduce this brother and while he's unconscious, search his house for clues. Sierra discovers this and many gunfights and action sequences ensue. You can pretty much see where this is going. The execution, though, is what makes the movie. An atmosphere, a feeling, a tone is created and it really is what makes the movie go down so smoothly. The action sequences are very well described. This is, of course, crucial to the success of the action movie. I certainly didn't get a headache like I usually do with John Woo's stuff. It helps that the movie was short, but the bottom line was the movie just glided by enjoyably and if also a bit forgettable. 65/100 (little more Lindo might have pushed it to 70)
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