Braven

Joe Braven (Jason Momoa) has his family and his logging company. His father Linden (Stephen Lang) suffers from dementia. After a bar fight, pressure builds to put his Pops into a home. He resists and takes Pops out to his cabin. Unbeknownst to him, one of his log truck drivers, Weston, is transporting drugs with Hallett. They crash on a snowy road and rush to hide the drug stash in Joe's shack. The incompetent pair's drug boss Kassen (Garret Dillahunt) leads the gang to recover his drugs the next day and it becomes a deadly cat and mouse game.

The first half is a bit slow. It spends too much time with the family. Introducing Joe as a family man should not take this much screen time. His father's dementia feels like a side plot point. It could have come in handy to instigate the standoff but the ignition is more problematic than that. There are different ways for Joe to ignite the confrontation. Splitting the drug stash in half is one of the inferior options. He should probably try to give it all to Kassen hoping that he would leave on his own accord. I doubt Kassen could ever leave the cabin without securing all of his drugs. Joe's plan is an unlikely pipe dream. His father's dementia could have been used as a catalyst for everything. The daughter's jacket is too bright purple. A smart man would turn it inside out for better camouflage. Joe ends up using too many special weapons. It's a little too Home Alone. I do like Momoa, Dillahunt, and Lang. They fit the setting and the manhunt plot. The cabin is probably too nice and the production couldn't afford to do much damage. They would probably be better off with a rundown shack where the bad guys can shoot the hell up. They could burn it down for real rather than the obvious fake fires. The second half does have some cat and mouse fun. This is good enough.

Stunt coordinator Lin Oeding turned director did a fairly decent job with the camera, but lousy on the editing, as some scenes were too dragged out. The 94 min length should have been edited down and the pace picked up for a length of 75-80 mins. He also failed to direct his cast properly, as some actors looked lost in certain scenes.

But the main problem with this film was the amateur first-time writing/screenplay by both Michael Nilon and Thomas Pa'a Sibbett. You would think when there's almost as many producers for this film as there are cast members, an investment towards the writing could have been applied to re-adapt the screenplay to rid it of major plot issues and unrealistic scenes, and perhaps a better score.

The acting was clearly C+ to B grade, with Jason Momoa, Jill Wagner, Teach Grant and little Sasha Rossof being the only ones convincing in their roles.

This is by no means a big screen Hollywood production, and if you can get past the amateur writing, and take in the breathtaking Newfoundland scenery, it's a fun lazy Sunday popcorn flick.

It's a 7/10 from me.

The film was pretty enjoyable. Even though I think a couple of the scenes were borderline outrageously out there (finale), I still enjoyed it.

While the movie lacks strong writing, the action is on point and there is a lot of suspense once the movie kicks into gear. The location this was shot in made the story more interesting. Overall, it was enjoyable in my opinion.

It wasn't bad at all. This is classified as a action film so I was expecting nothing but action. It was pretty entertaining, and surprisingly touching at times. Good acting and performances, good action as well.