Footsteps (2006)

I read the previous review, and I thought I'd have my say.For me footsteps, is an excellent film. If Hollywood violence and sexy performances are what you're after then possibly this film isn't for you. What footsteps delivers is one mans journey through darkness.I commend Gareth Evans for this film, I don't quite understand what the previous comment meant when they said it was amateurish, for me this is one of the best films to be shot on DV. Excellent in style, and while the pace of the film does start quite slow, it does draw you in, I thought Nicholas Bool was fantastic in it. If your expecting Tarantino Esq dialogue and charisma then yes you'll be disappointed, but Evans has clearly not set out to make that sort of film and I thought he got an excellent performance out of Bool.It has some heavy violence, and no its not pretty its horrible, but Mr Evans is clearly not setting out to make an exploitation picture here, he presents this dark world as, well dark. I believed I could have been in the scene, it was that realistic.The film has won awards and rightly so, while everyone is entitled to their opinion I personally believe the last review was a poor one and that this is a film to be commended.

Have to admit, after reading the "glowing" reviews from the cast and crew I already expected this one to fail, and when I got to the negative comments I figured I was in for a tough time. But to be honest while its hardly deserving the praise its gotten it doesn't deserve the hate either. The beginning could've done with a bit more of anything the lack of dialogue had me almost skipping forward a number of times and the sound was off in places. But as it went along and once people started actually talking instead of just sitting around in silence looking moody I actually started to like the film despite its flaws.Its far from a 9 or 10 star film but for what looks to be a low budget film I felt there was nothing that wrong with it. The gore is good in parts, there's a bit with a foot stab that looked good, the acting is decent enough couple of dodgy actors but mostly OK.Not brilliant, not rubbish, worth a look.

Painfully slow,amateurish and downright poorly acted first effort from a writer director who's clearly been renting Gaspar Noe/Toshiaki Toyoda style films out at blockbusters a long time. This as none of the wit originally or charm of other lower budget British directors like Simon Rumley or Chris Cooke. Save your time on this and go watch the likes of Red Road or This Is England.Normally I'd be the 1st to give a first time writer/director a break, but its a shame we get sham reviewers building films up to be more than they are. In who's book honestly is this a 9 or 10 ? They are clearly insider comments/ratings, sad as I highly respect mandiapple having read her reviews for years, she's oddly been someone who's pointed me in the direction of the film makers who's style Footsteps is clearly trying to emulate.For me I'd of most likely given this film a 4 for a nice first attempt but to balance the way off other ratings its getting a 2. I do hope you come back soon Gareth, hopefully you could learn one big lesson with this first feature and try make the people in front of the camera feel more comfortable, that way the viewer would feel more comfy and be able to enjoy the film.

As usual the cast and crew have written the first few reviews! I wonder why they bother when surely everybody by now knows that anything with a decent rating and a low number of votes must just be being pimped by the people who made it.Please don't waste your time watching this total garbage. It looks like it was made by schoolkids. The violence is laughably badly done (think 8 year olds pretending to play war or something - punches that don't connect, blood out of a ketchup bottle, etc. etc.). The endless 'thoughtful' silences at least have the decency to let you know the film is going to be boring as hell within the first 10 minutes.The camera work is awful, with the usual shaky-cam work trying to give it a gritty feel (I would suggest changing the sheets on your bed Mr Director - bound to be some grit floating about there), sometimes the main subject of a shot is out of focus while, for instance, a bus window frame is in focus... poor poor poor. If they can't even get the basic mechanics of film-making right it's no wonder the end result is a total waste of film, money, effort and more importantly the viewer's time.Watching Battlefield Earth is a better use of your time.