There are thing in life where if you know, you know. Those that 'know'in this case will understand the influences and subtle homages as well as appreciate the originality of 'Down and Dangerous'. For me I see a lot of Michael Mann here but also comparisons with John Woo's early Hong Kong cinema. Brooding characters, a single frame being able to capture so much emotion and resonance. In one scene a drug deal is being discussed, the camera moves to a close up of one of the characters and immediately I see a scene in 'Heat' where Waingrow is brought in to assist Van Sant. This is not a bad thing.Where 'Down and Dangerous' shines is being respectful of it's influences but also passionately original in it's execution and spirit.One late night a few weeks ago I was on my own, laptop perched on the duvet and wondering what on earth I could do to pass a couple of hours of my time. 'Down...' had just come into iTunes and after a quick Google search I was hesistant - a film funded on Kickstarter? But nonetheless the trailer had me intrigued.Just over 1.5 hours later I was buzzing after being totally engrossed in this film. It's not a brilliant low budget kickstarter funded film, it's a brilliant and inspired feature film.The characters are brilliant - the director does a fantastic job of getting all the nuances right. John T Woods has a real charm about him and turns in a memorable performance here - I expect this will lead to a great career. He is very watchable.The atmosphere, the music, the characters - I loved all of it. It reminded me of so many of my favourite films but also was unique. It's a classic!

You can classify D & D safely between Dante 's Peak , The Perfect Storm , The Impossible , The Day After Tomorrow and Twister. So it's a disaster movie ! The action is a disaster . The script is a disaster . And the performances are even a bigger disaster . Don't let yourself be fooled by the trailer, because it looks flashy and slick . There are a few slogans fired at you that sound promising. As there are : "Down and Dangerous looks like the sh*t" , "One bad mother of a movie" and "This is gonna be a bad film ." That's almost correct. I see it more as "Down and Dangerous looks like sh*t" , " One motherf*cking bad movie" and "This is gonna be a very sad movie ." The action is weak and boring . A series of fist fights . Ah yes, because Paul ( John T. Woods ) handles a golden rule, namely, that he never uses any firearms , but rather his fists ( even after it was severely beaten with a heavy hammer ) . Even if he has a gun in his hands , he ostentatiously takes the bullets out and throws himself in a man to man fight with bare hands . The excellent shooting part is performed by Henry ( Ross Marquand ). Apparently, a DEA agent who has received a medal for some heroic deed . Now he clearly didn't get that medal for his shooting talent cause he really sucks at that. I've never seen such bad aiming in my life before .The script is confusing and illogical . The film seems to lead somewhere but I don't have a clue where it tries to lead to. Obviously it's a low-budget film sponsored by family and admirers. The images are sometimes good but the execution is downright lousy. Hopefully this is not a sign of how future "independent" movies are going to look like. The weakest link for me was Paulie Rojas . A wonderful appearance with those Bambi-eyes that look at you in a tempting way. Besides the fact that she has an anorexic appearance, her acting is just awful. Completely amateurish and her dialogues sound as if she's constantly aided by a prompter. The scene where she explains the complete procedure of producing drugs, looks so incredibly unreal. It's like she is just reading it directly from a paper. If I was the guy who was selling the drugs , I had her executed on the spot. The (obviously predictable) love affair that she restarts with Paul has absolutely no meaningful contribution to the film and feels so contrived and numb. There's more emotion in a jar of pudding than these brief romantic moments that are used to fill up the movie. And don't get me started about that terribly heavy Mexican accent . The would-be Mexican drug lord Rafael Garza is also a joke . He runs a family business with incredibly stupid relatives. He tries to keep up the image of being a tough and violent gangster. But when the suitcase with his precious drugs ends up in the pool , he jumps after it as a toddler. A tough gangster would have kicked that girls ass into the water to retrieve the suitcase, I guess.Anyway , a terribly bad movie and painful to watch. Keep a far distance from this one. You have been warned !

I saw this film on opening night film at the Phoenix Film Festival. I had followed the film's progress via Facebook and Kickstarter. I was looking forward to seeing what a group of driven filmmakers could do with a budget just under $50,000, which is really NOTHING in the world of film budgets. The film is good, really good for a standard feature length film. But as an independent level film...it's truly great. Solid performances from the cast, high production value, great sound design, top level soundtrack and great twists and turns in a well written script, all contribute to make this a film that holds it's own against some of the uninspired flops that have recently graced the local multiplex. The director, Zak Forsman, does a great job of making the world of drug running come to life. The script, which he also wrote, has some great "tricks of the trade" in the cocaine world and even some choice dialogue which was a refreshing change of pace from other films in this genre. It's well paced and has a really solid twist that I feel not many people will see coming. The film's lead, John T. Woods, holds the role with authority, making him much more than capable of being a Hollywood leading man, which I'm sure he's not far from becoming. One of the great standouts was the performance of Ross Marquand. His subtle rage and understated performance really shows he's got some chops. Please understand that if we're comparing this film to say TRAFFIC or HEAT, even Forsman would say they've got a ways to go. But those films had almost unlimited resources at their disposal. Give Forsman the right budget and a few more stars and I'd say watch out folks...that's a film I'd definitely go see.

I wanted to like this movie. I backed it on Kickstarter and I've been rooting for it very much for almost two years. But there's no way around the fact that the movie is lame. Its a made-for-TV B- film.I want to be as positive as I can be so I'm happy to say there are some good performances in the film. Judd Nelson isn't one of them. The guy really really hammy. While I was watching the film it was hard not to snicker and say "Hey, John Bender really did go to prison!" On further thought maybe he's more like a boring version of Jack Peretti in New Jack City. Irregardless, he's just a puffy stereotype of the roles he played in the 1980's.John T. Woods and Ross Marquand deliver solid performances but Paulie Rojas is melodramatic as all get out. Some of the other actors, particularly the clichéd Mexican mobsters, are just cheeseball.The script is really quite awful. I didn't want to say that. I really wanted to like it! I kept forcing myself to say "well, for a low budget movie this isn't so bad!" but that's just not true. The more I thought about the film the more cheesy it became. The name of the movie sounds like a John Candy movie, the tagline makes no sense and the entire film plays like a low rent version of Blow. The most important part is that there is simply no way to make a drug dealer a good guy. I wanted to believe otherwise but it don't work. I spoke with three other people who saw the film and they all said the same thing. How do you root for someone who poisons people?Like I said, I wanted to believe in the film. I really did. I ignored the misleading trailer (which has quotes from its own backers and writers pretending they're critics. Thats just tacky), the cheeseball title and all the rest hoping there was a great movie buried in the tacky 80's packaging. But it isn't there. Its just very meh.