Blood Money (2016)
Starring Ollie Barbieri, Klariza Clayton, Scott Chambers
Directed by Luke White
Pulling off a high-level robbery is one thing, but everyone keeping their shit in order afterwards…now THAT is the true test of self-control! In director Luke White’s thriller, Blood Money, the audience learns about the true test of loyalty’s boundaries, and the impending implosion that can occur when there’s a leak in a tightly-sealed vacuum of thieves, cause you know, there’s no honor among…yeah, you get it.
Five pals concoct the “perfect” art heist (we all know how perfectly these things work out), and after their pilfering of some very valuable artwork has been completed, they all hole up in an empty house and await word from their buyer – simple enough, right? The group has all the bells and whistles commonly found with a group of this size – lovers, fighters, deep-down do-gooders, and one unlucky boob that’s been shot during the caper, and while they await word from a purchaser who appears to be somewhat elusive, varying road blocks position themselves in an attempt to bury this financial scheme before it gets a chance to turn the stolen art into some serious dough. What kind of roadblocks, you ask? Well, how about spooky visions in the abandoned house, a missing body, and the fact that the police are closing in quickly on this little band of crooks? Sounds like this job’s going to get burned up before it gets the opportunity to sizzle, and unfortunately this film never really gets the chance to heat up.
First off, the characters just seem as if they were dropped off and told to pull off this robbery – we don’t get much (or any) of a backstory explaining their needs, or what drove them to this life of crime, and the film gets stuck in neutral as a result of that. The performances are a bit disjointed as well – if you can’t make me believe that you are A: into this robbery and making me understand why you’ve gone to such lengths to pull it off or B: are aware that someone (or thing) else is holed up in the same house with you and poses a potential threat to your safety, then sorry, you’re not doing your job. White does pull of a nice bit of directing with a foreboding sense of dreariness throughout the film, but with no solid backstory, and a band of characters that look as if they’d rather be somewhere else, this Blood Money is better off left behind at the scene of the crime.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
