Bauer Martinez Entertainment

This could have been a pretty good film. I just don’t know. The advance material and the jacket suggest this is a “gripping thriller” with timely themes of terrorism and war. As soon as the film opens, it becomes immediately obvious that something entirely different is at work here. A news report suggests that a tyrant is showing his compassion and generosity when he commutes the sentence of a prisoner about to go to the guillotine. What does he commute the sentence to? Death by hanging. What a guy. I think my mood...was determined at that point. With the evident conflict, I begin to wonder just what the intent really was. Is this a satire? Do they really think this is “gripping” stuff? It’s hard to believe that the satirical nature of this script could be accidental. The entire film presents us with awkwardly comedic elements mixed with rather brutal images of death and torture. So what the heck is this film after all?

The film opens with an explanation that this undisclosed nation has been ruled by a brutal tyrant for many years. Upon the man’s suspicious death, his inept son, affectionately called Jr., takes over. The trouble is Jr. is worse than his father and is far more concerned with making bad action films than actually running the country. Campaign ads remark that you should “re-elect President for life and Things Will Be OK”. An underground revolutionary leader has been in prison for over ten years. He uses the time to write quaint words of wisdom on the walls of his cell in excrement while enticing his guard to his political beliefs. What follows is an expected coup followed by yet another brutal dictatorship. As the soldier wisely remarks, “Before the revelation it was man exploiting man; after the revelation it has reversed”. It is in this second act that the film attempts to jettison its comedic style and be the serious effort it claimed to be. More brutal images assault us at every turn, but by now it’s too late..