The Blacklight
Cast: Grant Lancaster, Richard Templeton, Samantha Aneson
Writers: Brooks Russell and Nick Snow
Director: Nick Snow
A small time thief gets himself involved with cult members and the mob who wish to retrieve a piece of cloth that grants immortality to anyone who wears it. In this supernatural, crime, dark comedy from Nick Snow and Brooks Russell.
Danny(Grant Lancaster) is a former crimnal turned landscaper who unsuccessfully tries to rob items from his boss’s estate. The son Liam(Brooks Russell) catches him but instead of turning him in. He asks Danny if he will let him assisst in commiting other crimes with him. Liam talks about this one house that is supposed to be filled with riches and the only one guarding the place is an old archeologist. With the help of a very unstable drug dealer Kit(Corey Scott Ruteledge). The three decide to go all in on this heist, but things become very complicated after Kit shows up late. You see, this home invasion comes at the exact same time these dangerous men who work for mob boss Gabe Giallo(Victor Verhaeghe) come to retrieve a special cloth that grants its user unbelievable powers. After Kit comes in and guns down everyone including the old man who owns the house, he retrieves the box and the cloth. After Danny is almost murdered by Kit, he goes to seek the help of the old man’s daughter Hannah(Samantha Aneson) to help get the cloth back.
That’s only scratching at the surface of this very entertaining feature from writers Brooks Russell and Nick Snow. This is a complex plot with many different character arches but in no way did I feel lost or confused while watching it. At 120 minutes, this kept my interest all the way through and I only felt there were maybe a few scenes that could have been trimmed down a tad, and there was a choice made by a certain person near the end that I don’t quite agree with but I’m just nitpicking here.
The cast is all really good with the standouts being Richard Templeton as Lucky. He plays one of Danny’s former co workers from his past in crime. He is like a mixture of The Dude from The Big Lebowski meets Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange. Other cast members that were outstanding include Grant Lancaster as our lead because he Danny is a sympathetic character who does make bad choices but does want to try and help people he cares about. I even liked how the movie starts off with Liam played by writer Brooks Russell and I thought this rich prick was going to be our main protagonist. But even he was good with what his character has to go through. The only actor I felt was trying just a bit too hard was Brad Stuart as Gregor(the son of one of the cult members looking to find the cloth) There were a few scenes that were a bit over dramatic which would be great if this was a stage production but on film when the camera is close to an actor’s face. I felt that was a bit of an over kill for me.
The Blacklight was not at all what I expected and I really enjoyed it. I hope studios like A24 and Neon take a chance on these filmmakers and give them a chance to make more movies.
****’s out of Five
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