VividSimon Simply Perfect

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Michael Ledo George Shevtsov plays a slow and methodical Croatian hitman. Through circumstances he ends up broken down at Marilyn's (Georgina Haig) house. She is an employee of Slim (Paul Holmes) who hired "the Croat" to perform the hit. At this point we have the home break-in formula.The film utilizes a 1950's suspense thriller soundtrack. There are attempts at dark comedy and symbolism that doesn't work too well. A quirky film that misses the mark.Worth a rental.Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex. Blurred shower nudity, spanking. Drug use.

musicreporter-1 Some Hitchcock elements here too. but overplayed.Pause and silence on of the powerful tools in movies but both overdone.And one of the slowest movies I have ever seen,... very little intrigue,...action seems to get started but each time momentum dies off with long boring sequences.So "Crawl" refers to how time crawls in this movie.Do yourself a favor, keep your remote handy and your finger on the fast forward button,...one sure sign of whether a movie is good is if you would like to see it again - this is a definite no.Ram

OJT This little Australian film is a rare hybrid of film that's not easy to place in any category or genre. It builds suspense, but is neither a thriller, a horror, a splatter or a comedy, though it's got elements of all. I found the film an enjoyable and entertaining watch, though no masterpiece. Highly inspired by both Hitchcock and Coens, to which the film pays homages more than once.We right from the starts meet "the Croatian hit-man", which is a quiet guy of few words, as opposed to the rest of the Australians. He does a job effectively, but from there it seems to go wrong.Well acted by all, with a bunch of odd characters in some underdeveloped roles, does keep the film from getting a large fanbase, I guess.The film is oddly slow between the action parts. You think it will bring comedy, when it does not, and you are over and over surprised by what the persons in the film are deciding and doing. I guess a lot of movie viewing is making us expect what to happen next. Director Paul China is a British first time director and does have n interesting style. The film is very well filmed, and very cinematic. No doubt this will be an interesting director to follow for the future.

StingrayFilms This Australian neo-noir crime thriller is the film debut by the China brothers. It is all but impossible to avoid comparisons to "Blood Simple" (1984), the first film by the Coen brothers. Both films take a simple story about grubby small-time criminals and turn it into an impressive showcase of cinematic style and fluid technique. The sketchy plot concerns a seedy bar owner (well played by William Garvey) in a rural town who hires an enigmatic Croatian hit-man (George Shevtsov) to murder an old enemy. But the assassin double-crosses him -- for reasons that are never explained. Meanwhile, Lauren Dillon (the obligatory beautiful blond girl), is alone in a big house where she frequently hears strange noises. Anyone who has ever seen a horror movie knows that searching for an intruder in an empty house is just asking for trouble. These moments, and an extended cat- and-mouse sequence later on, are set pieces for the filmmakers to show off their impressive technical skills. There are tense, Hitchcockian passages of sustained suspense that are seamlessly constructed with amazing confidence. Unfortunately style and technique can't salvage this woefully half-baked script. There is barely enough plot to fill out the scant 75-minute story. And what little narrative there is makes no sense. The story is full of maddening lapses in logic. The hit-man, in particular, does all sorts of strange things for no apparent reason. There is no characterization (who are these people?), no explanation for motive, and no relationships to bind the characters together. Instead, the three principals are thrown together by a series of implausible coincidences.There is just one scene with a bit of character development, which also (sort of) explains the enigmatic title. The bar owner, besides being involved in various criminal activities, is also a domineering pervert. One of his waitresses owes him money (details are never explained, of course) and she works off $100 of her debt by submissively "giving him the crawl" on all fours then going over his lap for a hard hand spanking.Someday, this film may become a landmark, like "Blood Simple", not for what it delivers, but for what it promises. The China brothers are clearly bursting with talent and ambition and will almost certainly create some stylish and memorable films in the future. Keep an eye on them.