"23 Minutes to Sunrise" starts off strong, the opening credits introducing the players of the film one at a time with some great cinematography by DP Chris Benson.
We jump into things with Eddie (Dingani Beza), a veteran of the war in Iraq who naturally has seen some terrible things - and one horrible "person" in particular. He's gone back to school after his tour, not looking for a job (the man already has one, he points out quite clearly) but looking for life - and boy does he find it at work, the Sunrise Diner, with its share of weirdos and a pretty, sweet waitress named Sheila (Jilanne Klaus) to even it all out.
Daniel (Eric Roberts, "The Dark Night," "The Expendables") and Hannah (Haley Busch), who we'll call a couple "old souls," grab a booth in the diner. Ted (comedian Bob Zany, "The Informant") and his wife Rachel (Nia Peeples, "Half Past Dead," "Pretty Little Liars") are already there going on about their marital problems, while star-crossed but all-hope- lost armed robbers Donald (Tom Sandoval) and Grace (Kristen Doute) enter a bit after.
We learn that Hannah literally has a life-long dilemma, and Daniel makes her a proposition, an offer for her to, let's say, trade her problem with someone else. It's 4:37AM and she has 23 minutes to find that person. Interestingly, she's in the perfect place (but doesn't realize it at first), where the broken hearts sharing their midnight miseries have gathered.
Donald and Grace eventually hold the diner up, Daniel watches everything unfold in disciplined pleasure (we know he's done this kind of thing for a long time now), Eddie gets in the middle, and Sheila gets a gun held to her head. All hell breaks loose in these few minutes before sunrise.
The script, written by Jay Kanzler (who also directed) and Patrick Pinkston, is solid, its biggest problems being some bad dialogue here and there and the execution between the characters of Eddie and Sheila. The two had chemistry as friends, but in trying to go beyond that at one point, they lost some believability.
The majority of the movie takes place in the diner, and Kanzler and his team deserve a great deal of credit for writing, shooting, and pacing the film properly to keep things interesting. It's certainly worth your time - it was worth mine - and I would be on the look-out for anything the crew puts together in the future.
We jump into things with Eddie (Dingani Beza), a veteran of the war in Iraq who naturally has seen some terrible things - and one horrible "person" in particular. He's gone back to school after his tour, not looking for a job (the man already has one, he points out quite clearly) but looking for life - and boy does he find it at work, the Sunrise Diner, with its share of weirdos and a pretty, sweet waitress named Sheila (Jilanne Klaus) to even it all out.
Daniel (Eric Roberts, "The Dark Night," "The Expendables") and Hannah (Haley Busch), who we'll call a couple "old souls," grab a booth in the diner. Ted (comedian Bob Zany, "The Informant") and his wife Rachel (Nia Peeples, "Half Past Dead," "Pretty Little Liars") are already there going on about their marital problems, while star-crossed but all-hope- lost armed robbers Donald (Tom Sandoval) and Grace (Kristen Doute) enter a bit after.
We learn that Hannah literally has a life-long dilemma, and Daniel makes her a proposition, an offer for her to, let's say, trade her problem with someone else. It's 4:37AM and she has 23 minutes to find that person. Interestingly, she's in the perfect place (but doesn't realize it at first), where the broken hearts sharing their midnight miseries have gathered.
Donald and Grace eventually hold the diner up, Daniel watches everything unfold in disciplined pleasure (we know he's done this kind of thing for a long time now), Eddie gets in the middle, and Sheila gets a gun held to her head. All hell breaks loose in these few minutes before sunrise.
The script, written by Jay Kanzler (who also directed) and Patrick Pinkston, is solid, its biggest problems being some bad dialogue here and there and the execution between the characters of Eddie and Sheila. The two had chemistry as friends, but in trying to go beyond that at one point, they lost some believability.
The majority of the movie takes place in the diner, and Kanzler and his team deserve a great deal of credit for writing, shooting, and pacing the film properly to keep things interesting. It's certainly worth your time - it was worth mine - and I would be on the look-out for anything the crew puts together in the future.