Ferocious (2013)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely brilliant

A Masterpiece!

Hollywood Star Leigh (Amanda Crew) returns to her small home town (of about 200,000 people) with her manager. In the films she plays "squeaky clean" roles. She oddly stays in a hotel, until we realize she has a checkered past, one that the owner of an adult entertainment establishment blackmails her over. She attempts to steal back the material and things go awry as Tess (Katie Boland) a fan, comes to her rescue.The bulk of the film takes place in the dark at a closed strip joint with people bonking and stabbing each other. It was rather boring as Amanda Crew doesn't soar above a "B" acting status. The plot goes no where in this Canadian thriller.Okay as a desperation rental.Parental Guidance: F-bomb. Blurred sex on TV. A grope scene. No nudity.

I'm sure that, one time or another, we all have dreamed about being a big and famous star, with paparazzi snapping their cameras on us all day long, with your name written on the poster of big blockbusters or with a crowd of fans beseeching for your autograph. Seems nice, doesn't it? Ferocious delves into the life of a famous actress, Leigh Parrish, and after watching it I'm sure you'll get a different view on fame.Ferocious is a movie that confused me at first. On one side, I saw a bunch of reviews praising it, however the contradicting IMDb rating was off-putting. But something captivated me in this movie, and I figured that the film was probably better than the unfitting 4.3 due to the good things said about it.I wasn't disappointed. I'll keep spoilers to a minimum and only talk a bit about the beginning. Ferocious takes place mainly in one location, with a limited but adequate cast. Leigh Parrish is a likable small town girl, who became a famous actress. You can tell that something is wrong, because she appears to be just a simple girl who lives in a much darker world that she appears to.Ferocious has a gripping starting scene. Leigh returns home from an interview and cancels the meeting with her parents she was supposed to have that evening. She takes off her dress and changes into a long coat and a hat to cover her visage. Then, she picks up a knife from her bed and slides it into her boot. Right off the bat, the movie raises a lot of questions and definitely hooked me in. Leigh then heads to Shakers, a night club that is currently closed but scheduled for re-opening soon. Shakers is the main location of the movie that I mentioned earlier, and in my opinion it's a perfect choice for a setting. Expect dimly-lit rooms and tight-quarter sequences, which fit the story perfectly and usually rank up the pressure and the tension. The actors are rather good. Amanda Crew's acting, along with the rest of the cast, aren't ground- breaking, but are good enough that the film remains credible. Michael Eklund however, just like almost all of his performances, really does the home-run with his portrayal of Eric, the freaky and quirky bartender and also Leigh's hurt ex-boyfriend. Not everything is positive though. A few plot points got me face-palming myself repeatedly, and truly got me wondering what the heck the writers were thinking. The characters also could have gotten a bit more development. Leigh, Tess and Eric were fleshed out enough, but Sal didn't feel three-dimensional beyond his layers of evil, and Callum is just the typical manager, and never changes beyond that. Not to mention that Tess really breaks her character towards the end.In the end, you'll be left with an empty sensation inside. Leigh does some horrible things to protect her fame, but as the screen fades to black you'll ask yourself: "Was it worth it?" Ferocious is an flawed and heavily underrated movie, that despite its mistakes has an intriguing story with a good starting sequence, decent performances and a powerful ending. Don't believe me? Check out the fellow reviews and all the nominations this movie got. And after the film is over, remind yourself that fame isn't always a good thing. It can change the person you are and make you ferocious.

The role Kim Coates has been dying to play, I'm sure. Another bad guy. Joke. But seriously, this isn't the regular bad guy. Coates plays someone much more sinister than usual and he clearly has fun with it. The plot has the lead character (Amanda Crew) return to where she was born to see her parents. She's a famous actress and is doing a hometown appearance. The media is all over her. She plays for the camera. She's good at it. But later, she heads to a night club. She's looking for something and we have to guess what it is. It must be important, or why would she go there. I'll confess that I saw it coming a mile away, but there are enough twists to hold my interest. Some of the dialogue stuck out and bothered me. But other than that, I enjoyed the movie. It's small, with only a few characters. But I like that sort of thing. Where everyone has to use their wits to survive. Directed with appropriate tension and good acting.

Kim Coates gives a two-for-one stellar performance in the film. Amanda Crew is terrific too, as is Michael Eklund. I found the screenplay well written and very well delivered, making for a relatively fast 93 minutes -- a fine fulfillment of the thriller's vision. Director Robert Cuffley's treatment of the story's monitor-and-mirror motif, definitely 'dark' in tone (much of the film is set in a dimly lit nightclub, after hours) becomes very big on the big screen; if we are paying attention, we recognize this 'monitor' as a mirror (and that any mirror can itself be a "mirage," as much as a monitor can). And to me an upclose- and-personal look at this reflection of archetypical truth, contextualized in clever and at times comical narrative, worth an evening's and a few dollars' investment.