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Reviews
The Channel (2023)
Surprisingly good.. if you adjust your expectations
The Channel is a low budget film, but one done with style and skill. It's clearly influenced by crime films like Heat and 21 Bridges (the main cop even looks like Chadwick Boseman!), but the plot manages to go to places that those films did not. The result is a movie that feels fresh and thrilling despite wearing its influences on its sleeve.
The film's secret weapon is definitely director William Kaufman, who has made a career of turning out big action on tiny budgets. His signature is creating visceral, realistic-ish gunfights and he doesn't disappoint here. Shootouts that would last 30 seconds in other movies instead go on for 3-5 minutes here and escalate in a pleasing fashion. I wouldn't say The Channel has the best shootouts he's ever made (see The Brave or Daylight's End for that), but this is certainly the best film he's made. It holds up even during the non-action scenes and I found myself invested in the predicament of the main characters.
If you can accept action movies without big studio production values, then The Channel is a good time at the movies.
Death Grip (2012)
Outstanding fight scenes, odd tone
First things first: The fight scenes in Death Grip are outstanding. Do you remember how complex, exciting, and fun Jackie Chan's fight scenes were in the late '80s before he became obsessed with stunts and running away? Well, it's like Eric Jacobus and the Stunt People picked up where Jackie fell off and have been developing that style all this time. They've taken that same punchy spirit from 80s Hong Kong fight choreography, updated it with modern camera techniques and editing, and put their own violent spin on it. You could make the case that no other group in the world create fight scenes as well as The Stunt People right now.
Having said that, Death Grip has issues with pacing and tone. Like classic 1980s HK cinema, the story veers from comedy to action to heavy melodrama to outrageous violence. But unlike those HK films, the pace is slow and leaden. Characters often pause and react slowly for no reason, making you want to yell at them to hurry up. The photography (while stylish) seems under-lit and the music is constantly ominous, giving the whole affair a gloomy vibe that detracts from the story's lighthearted tone and absurd events. Also, the fights are too few and far between and when they do come, the lighting is so dark that they can be hard to appreciate fully. It's infuriating to struggle to see those magnificent fights, then switch to the Blu-Ray's "extra" fights and see how well-lit yet still stylish they are. The brighter lighting and colours even give the fights an extra pop of energy! Regardless, Jacobus' likable underdog charisma pulls the film together and his epic battle with Johnny Bosch makes the film a must-see.