Redville is a story, by director/writer Sean Cranston and writer/executive producer Scott Thomson, of four friends from high school that go their separate ways only to be re-united by life events twenty years later back in the slow paced home town that most of them truly never left. An old scar prevents the one friend, Tony played by Paul Sacchetti, from embracing his former friends attempt at reconciliation and creates a situation the four of them must get through together which eventually brings them all the way back.
Redville had its moments and eventually found it’s groove, but to me throughout the entire movie there was this undercurrent where it felt like the story, the acting, the direction was constantly starting and stopping probably like somebody taking a test drive in one Dechachio’s used cars that doesn’t have the brakes figured out yet. Just as you thought you had an idea of where a character was coming from or where they were going the next thing you know they express something that is a total 180 and you’re like ok, well fuck it, I guess not. Or, even what I would have called the movie, “Tony’s Temper”, this was the ultimate 0 to 60 experience and again left me with whiplash in more ways than one.
And, even though I liked the idea of the story and felt for the friends trying to reconcile what was lost, their devotion to their friend at times I just didn’t quite understand. Especially once you get to the end of the movie and did the math of everything they all just went through, to me that devotion just didn’t add up.
As far as the technical side, sticking with this herky-jerky analogy for whatever reason I am doing so, there were good scenes and then there were scenes that weren’t so good. I’d chalk some of this up to what I call adventures in independent movie making however there were still things that could have been done better. The version of the movie that I saw definitely needs some polish on the sound levels to smooth them out from one scene to the next and could use some color adjustment to tighten some things up. And also, believe me, I understand the use of friends and family for taking one for the team and jumping in with a line or two, or filling up the frame, but even with that said, to me there were some things that could have been done to fix some of the more obvious moments.