CONFINEMENT (2005)

Peter (Stewart) wakes up and finds himself in the middle of a forest, dressed in some kind of prison-like uniform, with seemingly no one else in sight. Eventually he stumbles upon a young woman in a similar state of confusion, before she is promptly shot dead. Poor Peter finds himself preyed upon by a group of deadly hunters, including one kung-fu fighting guy (Thornett, also fight co-ordinator) who clearly idolises Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. It’s up to Peter and a small group of survivors to evade the hunters and work out just what the Sam hell is a-goin’ on here!
Most of you will know by now that I just love tearing into a bad movie for my own personal amusement. But when it comes to ultra low-budget offerings, I kinda feel bad ripping into something that someone has clearly made with every good intention and a lot of hard work, just to pick on the bad FX, poor acting, and overall shoddy filmmaking. Thankfully, I have some nice things to say about Confinement, though the film certainly has its shortcomings. Somewhere in between the pros and cons, lies the screenplay. Whilst we’ve all seen way too many variations on The Most Dangerous Game over the years, and many of them better, this one is far from the worst. One is intrigued to find out just what is going on and where it all leads, just like the characters.

Chief among the shortcomings would have to be the performances and characters, which are amateurish and uninteresting. Stewart, who also served as director, writer, producer, FX guy and other assorted jobs, gives a particularly lifeless performance in the crucial lead role. Not only that, but we know next to nothing about the guy, and thus don’t really care about him. There are two African-American actors in the film, but the first plays a weirdo cannibal character, and the latter is an arrogant fella, which kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, despite both actors giving better performances than Stewart. Also, the father-son hunting team characters were an almost direct steal from Surviving the Game, another variation on The Most Dangerous Game. That film had Ice-T, Rutger Hauer, John C. McGinley, F. Murray Abraham, and Gary Busey on hand, so Confinement has no chance competing (Not that Surviving the Game was a very good film, either). On the positive side, the lead villain (Sauve) reminded me a lot of the kinds of characters Dan O’Herlihy (Robocop) and Angus Scrimm usually play, he looks an awful lot like the latter actually, and is reasonably efficient. Also, the lead henchman, a wannabe cool Neo-like martial-arts expert provides some humour, whether intentional or not. I kept thinking I was watching Richard E. Grant or Robin Gibb doing an impersonation of Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, he was great fun.
I must say, the film didn’t suck, like many of these zero budget films can. Sure, there was a cheap-looking force-field thing that was never fully explained in the plot and looked extremely phony (it didn’t work in the overrated Undead, and certainly doesn’t here), and not much originality in the storyline as I’ve said. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how good this pretty inexpensive film actually looked. The cinematography was very impressive under the circumstances, and this film’s choice of locations (forest area and caves mostly) happened to be among the film’s best assets. I wouldn’t say Stewart had much directorial style, but he does what is needed. Even better, he knows about pacing, and filming action scenes, something a lot of directors with more money at their disposal manage to screw up time and again. The film moves at a very nice pace, not revealing the major twists too early, and keeps one intrigued, even if we’ve seen this story before (Think Lost meets Hard Target or Turkey Shoot). The action scenes show that, whilst not absolutely brilliant and elaborate here (the featured horse presumably took up half the budget), Stewart might have a future in that area. The gory sound FX were a nice touch, too. Also worthy of mention is the music score, which whilst not always matching the on-screen action, is pretty cool, and rather Predator-ish at times. And kudos to Stewart for a scene involving a bunch of murderous little children, a terrific moment.

It’s not bad, especially for the budget (it would’ve made a fine short film), but next time I hope Mr. Stewart finds better actors, writes more fleshed-out characters, and thinks up a more original story. For now, he’ll have to settle for my ever-so faint praise.