This indy film directed by Richmond Riedel holds your attention pretty much from the get go. A car load of blue-collar buds are off to a weekend of fun-filled fishing until they pass an unattended car in the woods. The good Samaritan attempt is immediately interrupted by gunfire. A couple of the guys are shot dead and Paul(Joey Lanai), Mark(Eric Dean) with another survive to scurry to the woods to hide. They discover they are targets of a dangerous cell of terrorists trying to protect the location of their training camp. The injured and frightened city boys think they have been befriended by an undercover CIA agent that infiltrated the terrorists ...but they have been double crossed. Tension builds, adrenaline pumps and relentless violence keeps you flinching rifle fire. Good guys match intelligence with the bad guys making for an action-thriller. Also in the cast: Eltony Williams, Aaron Hawk, Solomon Hoilett, Sean Christopher, Richard DeGullio, Bryan Hanna and Myles McLane.

Directorial Debut of Rich Riedel is a winner. A minuscule budget doesn't hamper the fun as a group of friends head out to the woods for a little r & r and run into the unexpected. Yeah, we've seen this type of story played out before in the action and horror genres (this one , strictly action), but Riedel's version puts a fresh twist on it. He keeps you guessing as the woods seem to be more populated with friends turned enemies turned friends then one would imagine. For a group of unknowns, the actors deliver believable performances. The camera is always in the right place and Riedel ratchets up the tension effectively. It seems like these type of straight ahead action pieces are a thing of the past, what with everyone trying to blend genres and "Tarantino" the story lines and dialog (often with unwatchable results). In many ways, Target Practice is a valentine to the action films of yore. He doesn't try to reshape the genre, he just hits all the right beats at the right times. A blast.

This is a terrific picture with great action, suspense, and atmosphere.Director Rich Riedel not only understands the impact of flashy, noisy gun play, he also gets the importance of silence as an almost unbearable agent of tension. Excellent performances by all of the cast. And a brilliant use of location where he transforms the great outdoors into Hell. I first saw this picture as an Executive Board member for one of the many festivals that screened it. Board enthusiasm for TARGET PRACTICE was robust and unanimous, and the film was a huge audience favorite. See it!

I saw this movie 2 times, at a film festival in Hollywood and then another one in Burbank. I really liked it but I sure wouldn't call it "fun," it's just really intense and suspenseful and actually pretty scary at parts. Almost like a horror movie. People were covering their eyes! I wasn't expecting that. I really liked the story, the whole idea about these terrorist camps in the woods. There's a lot of news reports on these places. I'm surprised some big studio didn't make a movie like this already. I'm also pretty surprised the FBI or whatever isn't doing more about the real camps.It starts out with these guys going on a fishing trip in the mountains. They almost hit a car that someone left in the middle of the road and they decide to go back and see if someone needed help or something. Bad call! Next thing you know, somebody's using them for target practice. See? Only it's like a LOT of somebody's, they're getting shot at from unseen snipers in the trees and the bullets are coming from every direction.Rest of the movie shows the guys fighting for survival, but there's a lot of twists and turns that I don't want to give away because I don't want to set off the Spoiler Police! But it's just a really good, really suspenseful little movie that I liked so much the first time, I took some more people the second time and they really liked it, too. It sure isn't "fun," though!