The Gist:
In the near future the United States is speeding towards fascism, and a bullied gay high school student named Carlos joins the youth resistance movement, creating videos exposing the truth of the take over of the government by Right Wing Christian Terrorists.
Comments:
The plot explanation makes this seem like an exciting action adventure flick, which it is not. Art film with all the implications of style being much more important than production quality, acting skills or plot is a more acurate description. Though to be fair, there is an actual plot here. A very thin plot involving conspiracies, but it is there.
One of the conspiracies involves REX 84, a plan to suspend the constitution and declare martial law. If you're old enough to remember Oliver North and the Iran Contra hearings, or have heard talk of FEMA concentration camps, REX 84 is this idea of herding up dissident citizens, feared as true for the extremes of both the paranoid far left and far right.
In addition to conspiracies, the movie compares the homophobia and racism of modern day (mid-1990's) American culture to the rise of power of the nazis in Germany. Sadly, an analogy that is still relevant, even more so given that I'm writing this in the final days of the 2016 presidential elections with Donald Trump being embraced by the KKK and right wing nationalist groups.
Despite having interesting elements, the story told in such a art movie / experimental / movie school "Who cares about quality as long as I get to the TRUTH" manner that most of the movie is barely watchable and ends up something I wouldn't recommend without a huge mile long list of caveats.
Women:
Yes
People of Color:
Yes
Gratuitous nudity:
Yes, although given that it occurs alongside violence I'd accept that the intention was not salacious but rather a desire to shock.
- Director: Jack Walsh
- Writer: K.M. Soehnlein, Jack Walsh
- Actors: Al Giordano, Jeff Constan
- 55 min
- Black and White
- IMDB
