"The Harvest" is in some ways a strange movie. It seems to be a curious mash of three different kinds of movies. Sometimes it's a thriller concerning the black market human organ trade, sometimes its an homage to noir movies from several decades back, and sometimes it's an erotic drama. None of these different paths are that great. The erotic side of the movie comes out of the blue in the latter half of the movie and doesn't seem to fit with what we've watched up to that point. The noir homages and the thriller paths suffer from the fact that the movie moves way too slow - it takes more than 40 minutes before the hero finds himself in a truly troubling situation. And what follows from that point suffers more often than not from a kind of "soft" feeling - the movie should have been more hard hitting. There is an unexpected twist near the end of the movie, but it will likely frustrate viewers. But there are some positive things to be found. The casting of Miguel Ferrer as the central figure was a good one - he's pretty good, and his unglamorous looks are a change from typical casting of chiselled actors in roles like this. The on location shooting in Mexico also gives the movie a nice seedy atmosphere. Kudos also to the director for having the guts to put in some elements that might make viewers uncomfortable instead of reassuring them throughout. I'm not sure if this movie works in the end, but it's offbeat and unusual enough to make you watch it all the way through... if you are a patient viewer, that is.
Review of The Harvest
