Dead End (2012)

Don't Believe the Hype

Best movie of this year hands down!

As Good As It Gets

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

My intention was not to review this atrocious exercise in abysmality but the pathetic fake reviews have once again compelled me to even up the score.An interracial family that seemingly all hate each other head out for a countryside road trip. Presumably their destination involves family counselling because no one in this vehicle likes anyone else, every combination possible is at war, meaning their arduous journey is punctuated only by constant complaining and petty squabbling.As tempers fray and fatigue kicks in, their vehicle is overtaken by a loutish group of rogues who gesture provocatively and slow their vehicle down when the lead has been stolen. The father reacts the only way you would react with two small children in the back, by shouting, swearing, and attempting to overtake the offending vehicle again. By the time he has been convinced to put his thinking cap on, their car collides and they awaken to find themselves at the mercy of said rogues. You might as well ignore the following 40-50 minutes of the film because it never happened and is entirely pointless. Characters that don't exist futilely interact with each other. Unlike in some of the hundreds of other films that this has ripped off, the dream sequence or whatever its supposed to be, means absolutely nothing and has no bearing on anything. Incredulously this has been described as an 'original twist' by some users, and some even claim that it enhanced the end product. If "Dead End/Cold Shoulder" was only as long as the events in the film, a semi interesting short story would remain that might be worth an extra mark. An appalling waste of time, money, bandwidth and anything else that was expended on it

We are often reminded that we have have the best film technicians here in the UK and indeed we have a solid movie history but so often we have trouble marrying that expertise with well produced movies. And this is a prime example. This was looking dire from the outset with the woefully amateur acting but I thought I'd stay with it until the end but it turned out to be clichéd, unimaginative drivel. It's just a complete embarrassment from start to finish and apart from Jamie Foreman I did not recognise anyone else in this mess so maybe the rest of the ensemble were hired on the cheap to play the Hillbillies? Do we have Hillbillies in the UK? Anyway, don't waste your time.

Dead End is over blown and weak on script. It centres around a fractious family car trip where mum and dad (Will Johnson and Angela Dixon) spend the whole time moaning at each other throughout. There teenage daughter (Frances Speedie) and son (Callum Anderson) are irritatingly miserable and grumpy.The journey takes longer than they had planned and at one point are overtaken by a convoy of travellers. This prompts dad into a confrontation which the family later regrets when they because ambushed by the travellers, tied up and torture. Sounds like a poor mans Rob Zombie movie doesn't it… Right! The family/gang lead by Jamie Foreman leads his motley and deranged family (Jon Campling, James Fisher, Lucy Drive and Jill Greenacre)… Told you Rob Zombie… Mr. Campling even adapts the voice… They all different aspect threatening or violence behaviour while their captors try their best to resist or escape. You kind of hope that it's going somewhere, that there's a deep meaning to it all but… what little there is does start to make sense as the intimidation progresses.Don't get me wrong it is not a total debacle, there are certain bits within Dead End/hard Shoulder to be commended. Mainly the performance of Jamie Foreman as a vicious villain. But there are also chunks of the movie that are simply poor… Cut it down – that's the best thing to do with this kind of low budget movie 75 minutes would be a max... then it would be much better.

It is my pleasure to recommend this very dark, chilling, psychological thriller with a difference. I was very fortunate to be invited to a private screening of 'Hard Shoulder' by a good friend. The film starts off with a bang and then slowly lulls you into a false sense of reality before taking you by the scruff of the neck and dragging you and it's fine cast into a chilling and very scary scenario. There are fine performances from all the actors on screen with 'Jamie Foreman' etching himself into your memory and for those who have fond memories of 'Jill Greenacre' from 'The Brittas Empire', this is a defining role in her career. A film of substance with a story line which will play on my mind for quite some time I think. I am looking forward and expect to see much more from this very talented director 'Nicholas David Lean'. The film I believe is not yet on general release. The sooner it gets out there and is seen the better.