Director:
John Cecil
Studio/Production Company:
Vodka Martini Productions
Genre:
Crime
Length:
Feature
Awards Won:
Official Selection Swansea Film Festival
Official Selection Action On Film Film Festival
Website:
http://www.hellsgatemovie.com
Score:
3/5
There were probably movies about young, urban thugs before Martin Scorsese’s classic 1973 film “Mean Streets” cemented his career as well as those of Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel but few have probably had quite the same ripple effect, literally inspiring another generation of filmmakers to take a shot at making the same movie over and over again. From “The Pope Of Greenwich Village” to “Reservoir Dogs” to The Boondock Saints” and countless others since then, the subject matter of doomed young tough guys trying to make it in the city has proven irresistible to dozens of new directors despite the fact that most of them follow Scorsese’s model to such detail that they often feel more derivative than distinctive.
So, it is a pleasant surprise to discover John Cecil’s “Hell’s Gate.” What, at first, appears to be yet another in this long line of “tough, urban thug” movies is, in fact, a tough, urban thug movie that manages to rise above most of the inherent clichés and be surprisingly effective.
Comparisons to other, higher profile entries in the “young urban thug” canon are inevitable, legitimate and almost totally unfair. Sure, “Hell’s Gate” employs very familiar ingredients but it does not deserve to be marginalized as a cut-rate knock off. The film really stands on its own and, in the eyes of at least one film critic, it is as good or better than some of more famous films that appears to emulate.
Inventively put together using solid indie film production strategies, the film is entirely engrossing and while it sometimes teeters on the brink of slipping into melodrama, it should be seen as marking the start of what could be a promising career for writer-director Cecil.
The story, like so many others, focuses on a down and out ex-con, in this case Kevin Kinney (Brian Faherty), a former stock broker who went to jail for aggravated assault, desperately trying to put his life back on track but still in debt to the mob. When his former cell-mate Ben Deardon (Jeremy Cohen) calls him up with a mysterious proposition, the temptation proves too hard to resist. Kevin and Ben soon find themselves meeting with an elegant, well-spoken but unmistakably dangerous Englishman, Mr. Nobody (Teddy Alexandro-Evans) who drafts them into a plot to kidnap a young socialite (Chelsea Miller), that might wind up being more complex than it initially appears.
Of course, tensions rise, tempers flare, allegiances are tested and secrets are revealed but audiences have come to expect this kind of thing in films like this and part of the fun is in seeing exactly how things are going to fall apart – as they inevitably do. Remember the old cliché “Crime doesn’t pay” that, generally, holds water in real life. Add to that tired old adage the reel life caveat: in movies about ex-cons trying to put their lives back together, they usually fail --- which does not necessarily always play out that way in real life. One of the nice things about “Hell’s Gate” is that the question of failure is relative and up for debate.
Cecil clearly knows how to make a low-budget independent film and he deftly avoids many of the pitfalls that can complicate a production strapped for funding. While, of course, locations and characters have to be kept to the bare minimum, Cecil mixes things up well enough that the film never really feels like it is about a couple of characters sitting around in one room which, to a large degree, it actually is. Like many indie films since the dawn of the Tarantino era, Cecil chops up the chronology of the action with flashbacks and while there are the requisite pop culture references, here a recurring analysis concerning the careers of 90’s singers Jewel and Alanis Morrisette, Cecil impressively goes beyond a discussion of musical performers and ultimately raises it to a level where it becomes a metaphorical device.
Unfortunately, the casting is spotty at best. Faherty is decent, with his almost palpable anger at the world and while his performance is incredibly well nuanced, demonstrating an impressive range, he is not always 100% convincing as a hardened ex-con. Cohen does pretty well in a basically cookie cutter loose cannon role but, at times, he really feels more like an actor playing a tough guy, rather than a real tough guy. Whether Miller is good or not is hard to tell because she was either miscast here or the role was badly misconceived since she comes off more like an angry environmental activist and less like the spoiled young Manhattan socialite that that might have given the action a little more energy. Rounding out the cast as the classy, dangerous Mr. Nobody, Alexandro-Evans comes off as stiff and wooden where he probably should have been more reserved and internal – a fine line to be sure but one that would have been handled better by an actor of higher caliber.
Still, flawed in some areas but not in others, “Hell’s Gate” should be commended for putting story first and style, mood and atmosphere second. The script is pretty tight, twisting and turning in unexpected ways and any filmmaker who knows how to get that part right, is really doing his or her job.
John Cecil
Studio/Production Company:
Vodka Martini Productions
Genre:
Crime
Length:
Feature
Awards Won:
Official Selection Swansea Film Festival
Official Selection Action On Film Film Festival
Website:
http://www.hellsgatemovie.com
Score:
3/5
There were probably movies about young, urban thugs before Martin Scorsese’s classic 1973 film “Mean Streets” cemented his career as well as those of Robert DeNiro and Harvey Keitel but few have probably had quite the same ripple effect, literally inspiring another generation of filmmakers to take a shot at making the same movie over and over again. From “The Pope Of Greenwich Village” to “Reservoir Dogs” to The Boondock Saints” and countless others since then, the subject matter of doomed young tough guys trying to make it in the city has proven irresistible to dozens of new directors despite the fact that most of them follow Scorsese’s model to such detail that they often feel more derivative than distinctive.
So, it is a pleasant surprise to discover John Cecil’s “Hell’s Gate.” What, at first, appears to be yet another in this long line of “tough, urban thug” movies is, in fact, a tough, urban thug movie that manages to rise above most of the inherent clichés and be surprisingly effective.
Comparisons to other, higher profile entries in the “young urban thug” canon are inevitable, legitimate and almost totally unfair. Sure, “Hell’s Gate” employs very familiar ingredients but it does not deserve to be marginalized as a cut-rate knock off. The film really stands on its own and, in the eyes of at least one film critic, it is as good or better than some of more famous films that appears to emulate.
Inventively put together using solid indie film production strategies, the film is entirely engrossing and while it sometimes teeters on the brink of slipping into melodrama, it should be seen as marking the start of what could be a promising career for writer-director Cecil.
The story, like so many others, focuses on a down and out ex-con, in this case Kevin Kinney (Brian Faherty), a former stock broker who went to jail for aggravated assault, desperately trying to put his life back on track but still in debt to the mob. When his former cell-mate Ben Deardon (Jeremy Cohen) calls him up with a mysterious proposition, the temptation proves too hard to resist. Kevin and Ben soon find themselves meeting with an elegant, well-spoken but unmistakably dangerous Englishman, Mr. Nobody (Teddy Alexandro-Evans) who drafts them into a plot to kidnap a young socialite (Chelsea Miller), that might wind up being more complex than it initially appears.
Of course, tensions rise, tempers flare, allegiances are tested and secrets are revealed but audiences have come to expect this kind of thing in films like this and part of the fun is in seeing exactly how things are going to fall apart – as they inevitably do. Remember the old cliché “Crime doesn’t pay” that, generally, holds water in real life. Add to that tired old adage the reel life caveat: in movies about ex-cons trying to put their lives back together, they usually fail --- which does not necessarily always play out that way in real life. One of the nice things about “Hell’s Gate” is that the question of failure is relative and up for debate.
Cecil clearly knows how to make a low-budget independent film and he deftly avoids many of the pitfalls that can complicate a production strapped for funding. While, of course, locations and characters have to be kept to the bare minimum, Cecil mixes things up well enough that the film never really feels like it is about a couple of characters sitting around in one room which, to a large degree, it actually is. Like many indie films since the dawn of the Tarantino era, Cecil chops up the chronology of the action with flashbacks and while there are the requisite pop culture references, here a recurring analysis concerning the careers of 90’s singers Jewel and Alanis Morrisette, Cecil impressively goes beyond a discussion of musical performers and ultimately raises it to a level where it becomes a metaphorical device.
Unfortunately, the casting is spotty at best. Faherty is decent, with his almost palpable anger at the world and while his performance is incredibly well nuanced, demonstrating an impressive range, he is not always 100% convincing as a hardened ex-con. Cohen does pretty well in a basically cookie cutter loose cannon role but, at times, he really feels more like an actor playing a tough guy, rather than a real tough guy. Whether Miller is good or not is hard to tell because she was either miscast here or the role was badly misconceived since she comes off more like an angry environmental activist and less like the spoiled young Manhattan socialite that that might have given the action a little more energy. Rounding out the cast as the classy, dangerous Mr. Nobody, Alexandro-Evans comes off as stiff and wooden where he probably should have been more reserved and internal – a fine line to be sure but one that would have been handled better by an actor of higher caliber.
Still, flawed in some areas but not in others, “Hell’s Gate” should be commended for putting story first and style, mood and atmosphere second. The script is pretty tight, twisting and turning in unexpected ways and any filmmaker who knows how to get that part right, is really doing his or her job.