Click Here For Our Interview with Scott Speedman

Anamorph

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

Everyone who knows me, and I’m including all of you awesome people who read our reviews on a regular basis, know that my absolute favorite type of film to cover is a small indie that was shot on a really low budget but that had such a great script was able to get really huge talent attached. Last years Descent with Rosario Dawson and Chad Faust is the perfect example. That movie was hands down my choice for ‘Best Picture of the Year,’ even though it was completely overlooked by other critics because of its racy subject matter and the fact that they didn’t have millions of dollars to put behind one of those ridiculous Oscar campaigns. In my mind a movie that’s daring and willing to go places that cinematically we haven’t gone before and is able to truly affect its audience is what it’s all about. But, that’s just me. For everyone else, it’s the almighty dollar that matters most unfortunately.

So naturally when I heard that powerhouse actor Willem DaFoe had teamed up with The 24th Day alum (Still one of my favorite films of all time by the way), Scott Speedman, I couldn’t get in front of the screen fast enough to see it!

I wish I could say I was totally blown away by it, but sadly I wasn’t. This time, believe it or not, the lack of budget actually negatively affected the finished product because of the nature of the story. It is incredibly difficult to shoot a cop movie on a limited budget without it ‘looking’ like it was cheaply made. And it’s also very, very difficult to find new and exciting ways to tell cop stories thanks in large part to the saturation of this type of drama currently on television what with all of the Law & Order’s and C.S.I. – type shows already out there.

That being said Anamorph does break some new ground introducing a crime that revolves around Anamorphosis; because I don’t think we’ve seen that before. Anamorphosis is a drawing presenting a distorted image that appears in natural form under certain conditions, as when viewed at a raking angle or reflected from a curved mirror. So basically, it’s looking at the same thing from different angles but seeing something different from those angles. In effect what it does is it makes the clues that are left for the viewer during the film harder to discern, making the process of solving the murder mystery all the more enjoyable