Let me state first and foremost that I am a filmmaker myself, so I tend to look at films with both a cinematic eye, as well as one for pure entertainment.
HUSH MONEY is a film that caught both eyes. A superbly crafted piece of art, that both touches your heart and your mind. Director Terrell Lamont strikes a chord from the very beginning by embroiling you right into the predicament the main character, Douglas Shaw is in. As a member of the audience, you feel completely entrenched with Doug as he is faced with quandary after quandary, all with the hopes of making a better life for his family.
I don't want to speak too much into the details of the story, as it unravels beautifully within the film and rather than providing a synopsis, I'll speak to it's best elements. The story is one that many can identify with. The challenges and events that arise for the main character are both clever, realistic and heartbreaking. Structurally, it is tight and as sound as you never feel a moment of stagnancy. One of my biggest pet peeves in films are "filler scenes" that tend to throw you mounds of exposition that try to explain away why things are happening or what's to come next. HUSH MONEY has none of that. You essentially strap in from the opening credits and are along for the ride till the very end experiencing what the characters go through and seeing first hand their plight, rather than being told.
From a cinematic standpoint, this film stands on its own. Lamont perfectly captures a gritty, and immersive feel with well crafted shots, framed in such a unique manner to where the composition of the shots are familiar enough to an audience, but tweaked ever so slightly, just enough to evoke an intriguing and distinctive feel and emotion from the audience. To a filmmaker like myself, this is capturing the true essence of cinematic brilliance. If you take the basic, given or mundane and turn it into something unique and interesting, yet still true to what it is... that is brilliance.
My biggest takeaway from this film was that I've never seen something so enthralling, so engaging, from a story so simple, yet clever in how it is told. After all, that is what filmmakers are supposed to be, storytellers. My personal preference is to be told a story, but one that also yanks emotions from me, wows me visually and captures a mood or feel that I can resonate with. HUSH MONEY did that and more.
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