Review of Infliction

Infliction (II) (2014)
8/10
An interesting commentary on the system and society, well worth a watch!
24 July 2014
Infliction is the story of two brothers,in 2011, who documented their murder spree in North Carolina. This is the actual assembled footage. The question is what prompted this spree, and why did these two brothers feel the need to document it? Well to get those answers you will have to watch this one for yourself!

What I will say about is Infliction is this...

Infliction is a story of failures, failures of the communities we live in, failures of the agencies put in place to help protect us, and failures of personal responsibility we all have to make things better (or worse) for the people we see every day. Its a dark look at what happens when we fail to do what is morally right because we either don't want to get involved or don't know how to through the bureaucracy of systems set in place.

When you look at the film there are a lot of interesting things going on, some of which may really get under your skin, enraging and depressing you all at once. Its a well written story with a focus on the culmination of the choices made by others and the effect they had on these two brothers, not just for the day but everyday of their lives there after, how they shaped and molded them, in turn eventually setting into place the decisions that they make to exact retribution.

It could easily be set in any area of the country, on any given day. Its a film that once seen, we realize we watch some portion of in every newspaper on news broadcast, almost daily, and that is part of the force behind this film and what makes it so powerful, and disturbing. I have no doubt that this is a story that will resonate with many viewers.

Infliction boasts performances that are above average for small budget indie films, all the main players are easy to watch, some stronger than others, but all in all well rounded. I felt like some of the dialogue was slightly over scripted, taking away from the organic feel that you want a found footage film to have, but the story was strong enough to make it easy to look past that when it happened. Personally I found Ana Shaw to be a huge standout in this one, she is spot one. She feels very organic, delivers some stirring, raw emotional scenes, and has a very complex character that she just plays to a tee. She steals the scene when on screen with her very powerful performance, making it hard not to watch her regardless of what else is happening around her. The role played by Don Henderson Baker is also one worth special mention. He plays his part a as callous, cold and completely unsympathetic character so well I found it hard not to enjoy him in a villainous sort of way, hes just a mean cantankerous SOB that your going to love to hate.

Infliction starts a little slow, but if you stick with it you are rewarded quite handsomely with a film that really comes together, answering the deep questions in a way that's a bit more twisted than you'd probably guess. The action and pace get ratcheted up at about the mid point making the last half just fly by, with consequences for our characters that are farther reaching than we could have imagined going in, and ending in cavalcade of bloodshed that was really quite well done. And once the credits roll, that's when you see the testament to the films success (or failure), because this is a film not meant just to entertain. Infliction is a film that is meant to make a statement, and only you can say whether it spoke to you, inspired a conversation, or left you reflecting on the choices you have made, or would like to believe you would make given similar moral dilemmas in your life. Just remember the choices you make when the time comes will affect generations, so make them carefully!

*HeatherOmen*
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