Once Fallen (2010)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

So, it's not perfect, but almost perfect it is. I mean there is nothing about I love it or I hate it. Just very good film. I picked up this piece because I like Ed Harris very much - one of my favorite. He didn't disappoint me again. And the rest of acting was equally good - almost brilliant. Everything is OK - music, shooting, story, action, feelings, space for viewers to muse about relations and such. I wonder why so many people give relatively bad rating, it's just very nice movie. I admit - this is no review, just reaction to undeserved underrating. Give it a chance if you are not eager to watch big Hollywood blasts and chases but realistic story of people on the edge of society, but still part of it.

This film is about a young man, Chance (Brian Presley - Borderland), who has a lot of problems with his life, that he must overcome. His father Liam, (Ed Harris) is currently in prison for beating a man to death, and has been elected head of the Aryan Nation, which gives him certain privileges, but also some obligations that he must fulfill.Chance's best friend Beat (Chad Lindberg - The Fast and the Furious) has a lot of psychological problems, and is currently involved with a notorious drug-dealer, Rath (Ash Adams - Lionheart), who also happens to be a crooked cop, and doesn't take no for an answer. Apart from these problems, Chance has just found out that his ex-girlfriend Kat, (Alison Eastwood - Tightrope) has been raising his child while he was in jail, but now decides to split and leave the kid with him, all the while Rath is hassling him, Beat, and Liam.Chance gets some help from his old pal, bar-owner Eddie (Peter Weller - RoboCop), who in return expects Chance to do some street-fighting for him. Random fights is the only job Chance can get, apart from dealing drugs, but as he now has a young son to raise, and recently finds new love in Pearl (Taraji P. Henson - Hustle & Flow), who just happens to be black - something Liam's fellow Aryan brothers certainly doesn't approve of, and they send their number two, Sonny (Peter Greene - Pulp Fiction) to tell him about it in person.The thing about this film that makes it fall beneath the cracks of goodness, is the sheer lack of common sense. For starters, it doesn't make any sense, that: 1) Liam became the head of the Aryan nation, but doesn't seem very well-liked by ANY of the other Aryans. 2) Chance's girlfriend just leaving her son with him - an almost complete stranger - after raising the kid for 5 years! 3) The part about Rath ending the way it did - made NO sense whatsoever. In the end, it all just feels like the story could've gone in SO many other directions, which would've been better. And the producers had an all-star stellar cast of character-actors, which they didn't use for anything at all! I mean, the movie has Richard Tyson (Kindergarten Cop), Antonio Vargas (Starsky & Hutch), Jesse D. Goins (RoboCop), Sticky Fingaz (Onyx), Rance Howard (Ed Wood), and Steve friggin' Railsback (Lifeforce), and a LOT of other great character-actors, but they're all just completely WASTED in this production, only half of them getting any lines, and the rest just appearing in a few minutes with hardly any screen-time at all... it makes no sense, not to use any of them for anything.. why not just cast some random unknowns instead?I felt like a good opportunity was missed here. Some of the points came across well, but mostly it was just wasted.

I think this movie is under-rated. Unfortunately, I checked the IMDb rating before I watched the movie and watched it with the expectation of being disappointed. However, as the movie progressed the acting and plot surprised me. It was well worth watching, and is a movie that I will remember as being great.Many of the characters are difficult to like or relate to. The profanity was a turn-off for me. However, it told an interesting story without resorting to cheap sentimentality. If people are expecting a typical Hollywood style blockbuster then they will be disappointed. I thought it was a realistic portrayal of shady characters who are difficult to like but did a good job of developing the characters throughout the movie. In the end, a few characters go from being unlikable degenerates to heroes.

This film receiving a 3.6/10 is unfathomable to me. The acting is superb and the plot develops very well. This film is about a family and their close knit friends having to live with the hard choices they make, and the price they pay for those choices. There is real emotion to this film and the characters are developed extremely well. It has elements of film noir in its gritty and detailed depiction of characters with rough edges and all but that really adds to this film's power. Ed Harris does not disappoint in his role as the deeply flawed yet caring father, who puts everything on the line for his son over and over again (not wanting to spoil anything, that is all I will say about that). An excellent film, well worth watching.