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Haven

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

Every year, new filmmakers arise and every so often, a few have tremendous promise to bring a unique perspective to the craft. One such filmmaker is Frank E. Flowers, a native to the Cayman Islands and graduate of the University of Southern California’s film and television school.

His first film was a short titled Swallow, which premiered on HBO in 2003. The following year, Flowers wrote and directed his first feature. However, after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2004, it was subsequently shelved until exactly two years later when it finally got a limited release. Now, his debut feature Haven is available on DVD.

The film tells of three different stories that culminate during a wild party in the Cayman Islands. The first one is of an idler known only by the nickname Shy (Orlando Bloom). After it’s learned he witnessed his father getting murdered at a young age, Shy ends up working as a dockhand and ends up falling in love with his boss Sterling’s (Robert Wisdom) daughter Andrea (Zoe Saldana).

Sterling strongly disapproves of the relationship and soon Andrea’s temperamental thug brother Hammer (Anthony Mackie) threatens Shy. Soon, it culminates in a shoot-out which forces one of them off the island. Meanwhile, illicit businessman Carl Ridley (Bill Paxton) jettison with his daughter Pippa (Agnes Brunner) their Miami home for a condo in the Cayman Islands after a tip off about the feds preparing to arrest him.

Ridley seeks the aid of his financial advisor Allen (Stephen Dillane), who turns out to be the one who conspired to have Ridley arrested in the hopes of a payday. Meanwhile, a slacker named Fritz (Victor Rasuk) runs into Pippa and soon begins to try to woo her.

After catching a glimpse of Ridley’s secret stash of money, Fritz uses his chance encounter with the man’s daughter to his advantage by alerting his findings to a gangster Richie (Razaaq Adoti), of whom he owes money to. By the end of the night, each character struggles to deal with the seedy side of life in the Caymans.

Flowers’s style of sleek filmmaking and rapid-cut editing is interesting and shows a lot of potential for his skill in the field. However, the story he puts together lacks any distinction to be anything but merely marginally compelling.

What makes matters worse is that, despite a great ensemble cast, the movie’s multi-tiered plot ends up being too woefully complex and incoherent to make it significantly enjoyable. As a result, the abstract set up of this film consequently plays out like an extended short subject film that plods along and goes nowhere.

The double-sided DVD allows viewers to see the film both in its original anamorphic 1:78:1 widescreen picture of its theatrical release, as well as a full-frame pan-and-scan version. There’s very little in the way of special features ...