Blood, Sand & Gold (2017)

Undescribable Perfection

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Absolutely Brilliant!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

After finding a chest of the missing treasure of Sir Francis Drake in the Western Sahara desert, the company turns on Mave Adams (Monica West) and leaves her for near dead in the desert. The film then flashes 4 years...which is not 4 years later, but the length of time Jack Riordan (Aaron Costa Ganis) has spent in a Belgium prison for illegal archaeological digging. I had trouble with both of those details, but continued. It seems Mave's brother Matthew (Christopher Redman) of Adam's Exploration has taken over the company as CEO and has bumped her out. Mave hires Jack to help her recover the treasure stolen from her in the desert (we saw that coming) for most of the rest of the feature minus a few details.This is similar to your Indian Jones type of films except in modern times. Aaron Costa Ganis is no Harrison Ford and as such his character was a let down. Monica West failed to give her character the needed personality and I don't know what she is doing in the desert with her skin that pale. The film lacked engaging dialogue and quality actors.It has been speculated some of Drake's treasure may be buried in Marion, California. I could have bought into that. Western Sahara is a bit far fetched. The ending leads into a sequel for our twosome treasure hunters which is in production.Guide: F-word, implied sex, brief nudity (Shuna Iijima)

Within the first few minutes, I "heard" trouble. Yes, those films that have either poor dialogue sound quality that they they attempt to smother with loud music / Foley, or the composer pushed to have the score loud for ego sake. Either way, if I have to strain to hear the dialogue, it's a fail. Had they invested in ADR in lieu of extraneous locations, so they could drop the music with confidence when characters were talking. Speaking of locations, the story seemed to be outdoing a 007 film, but for no necessary reason. Perhaps it was the attempt to make a small budget movie look huge, but every element of the story must have a reason for being there. I found the reasons to be on the weak side. The acting was okay, but some over-the-top action made me smile instead of gasp. Lack of setups for payoff left story elements implausible. The rooftop chases (funny how both actors knew the "landscape" so well, but only one lived there, and the actress was uncannily able to follow them from a street perspective for what appeared to be many blocks, without ever being able to see them). Her sudden ability to be a sure shot in another scene with no setup and other unbelievable incidences rendered the story, for me, well, unbelievable. Anyone else notice that her white shirt never showed a single bit of dust, even in the desert.

Do yourself a favor and buy this movie right now. Not only is it a ton of fun to watch, but it's also the future of movie making. For less than $275k, director Gaelan Connell has made a epic action movie that gives most any Hollywood blockbuster a run for it's money. Sure, the script has a few cheesy lines, (it is an action movie after all), and none of the actors (all relatively unknowns) deliver a performance quite as memorable as, say, Heath Ledger did as the Joker. But this movie was shot for a fraction of the budget of any Hollywood blockbuster and is honestly almost as good. The Dark Knight cost $180 million to make. Blood, Sand, and Gold literally cost 0.1% percent of that to make. Not one percent. POINT one percent! And here is the crazy thing: You really wouldn't know it was made for so little by watching it. The action sequences are top notch, the locations are exotic, and the pacing is superb. There are car chases, foot pursuits, exploding trucks, helicopters, grenade launchers, machine guns, luxury cars, and a seriously big tiger! Part of what makes the movie so exciting is that Mr. Connell and his crew didn't rely on special effects during any of the movie's many action scenes. When one of the bad guys gets chased straight off the roof of a building, the stunt guy really does go crashing into the hood of the car parked below. Metal bends, the windshield shatters, and you completely forget that you are just watching a movie. When the fuel tank on an SUV ruptures after a car chase in the desert, you watch as it actually blows up! There is no CGI or digital touch up, just one massive fireball as the SUV explodes into gnarl of twisted char. It is gritty and real and absolutely exhilarating to watch. If I were a Hollywood producer I would be terrified of Gaelan Connell. With Blood, Sand, and Gold, he just proved that with enough raw talent and ambition you can make a full-length, blockbuster quality action movie for about the same amount of money that Christopher Nolan spent on just 30 seconds of the Dark Knight. This is the future of film making!

I have never written a review before but felt I had to this time. Saw this advertised online then read the review by GearPatrol.com on IMDb...for the money ($274k) the result is amazing. Mr Connell has made the genre of film he wants and should be more than pleased with the result. Most low budget indies are about character and story but this shows that the genre can be bigger than that. This reminds me of what Gareth Evans did with 'The Raid' but for less. Yes..the acting may not be the best (but far better than most of us could ever do, believe me) but he has made a small, independent movie that so surpasses expectations that I cannot believe. His vision far out ways his budget and the major producers/studios must surely want to see what he does with a larger budget. And no, I am not related to anybody connected to the director, producers, investor or anybody else. I just love film of all genres and was really amazed with what I just saw...sometimes you just want to be entertained. Watch and enjoy.