Close Range (2015) - Scott Adkins, Madison Lawlor, Nick Chinlund, Caitlin Keats

[mpm74]

Judging from an early review, CLOSE RANGE sounds promising, despite some minor flaws:

 

http://www.cityonfire.com/close-range-2015-review-aka-dust-up-isaac-florentine-scott-adkins/

 

 

[AlbertV]

I saw an online screener of the film over the weekend to review it. Here are my thoughts:

 

https://worldfilmgeek.wordpress.com/2015/11/07/review-close-range-2015/

 

 

[mpm74]

New action clip from the film:

 

 

[D1 Ma]

Non-important stuff:

Probably, it’s the weakest  Florentine’s movie. Lazy script, bad acting, bad pacing, weak direction. The whole movie looks very amateurish and very cheap.

 

 Important stuff:

 I’m not an expert but I thought the camera work during the fights was superb. Camera‘s always on the move, showing the action from different angles, moves fluidly,  not too close to the fighters. I would love to see more action shot by this guy. Can’t praise him enough. It actually took me 2-3 viewings before I realized that the first action sequence was shot in one continuous take. It’s about one minute long, but shot and acted flawlessly.

 After that for almost 30 minutes nothing interesting happens. For a movie around 80 minutes long that’s not a good thing.

Then we have the best fight of the movie: Adkins vs. the fight choreographer Jeremy Marinas. Again long takes, some interesting moves.

 I gotta say, the choreo has a very distinctive style. I read it’s Krav Maga, looked like MMA to me. Not exactly the style I like. ( I actually prefer something like Tim Man did in Ninja-SOAT) Still, I thought the fights looked good, very fast, looked very natural.  I thought that combination of very fast moves and long takes was really amazing. Despite the fact that I’m not a big fan of that kind of choreo, I gotta say, the fights were nicely choreographed, executed and shot.

I think it would be a good idea to spice them up a little bit with more gore, going the route the creators of The Redeemer went. I mean, we have some blood, some stabbings but it was kinda “PG-13-ish”.

Anyway. Then we have a kitchen fight. Quite short, nothing spectacular, but solid in every sense.

 The final fight was bloodiest of them all, but marred by 2 cutaways where the viewers were treated to more bad acting and lazy screen writing.

I have to mention that the rest of the “action” was plain bad. Badly staged, badly executed and very boring. I was surprised how helpless Florentine was shooting the shootouts. Again, I thought the final shootout in the Redeemer was the highlight of the movie, very nicely shot. ( I compare the two actioners as they feature good screen fighters and were shot on a low budget )

So, overall, - a very poor movie with about 7 minutes of good fights. I can’t praise Scott Adkins enough. Doing a different style of fighting, he still looked great, fast and precise. 

[Karlos]

I liked it more than you, D1 Ma, but yeah, it's a definite step-down from NINJA 2.

[sym8]

Weak film and dull story,the acting is terrible.this film has a look of a really bad low budget film.definitely their worst collaboration.The action is okay but at times it doesn't seem to fit into the film.Check it out for Scott Adkins martial arts skills but that's about all

[DragonClaws]

Glad to hear the action scenes hold up and are filmed without any excessive quick cuts & shakey camera angles. Sadly poor storys and weak scripts have held back many Martial Arts films over the years. Sometimes this is down to lack of time and money, or just simply because its a bad idea they've chosen to start with.

[ShaolinMasterKiller]

Saw this yesterday, and I'm going to have to agree with the more critical opinions here: everything except the all-too-brief fight scenes is tough to sit through, and that includes the shootouts, which are surprisingly dull and uninspired, esp. when compared to the hand-to-hand combat. It's a movie tailor-made for a YouTube fight compilation and little else, and even then I feel like said video would only be about 6 or 7 minutes long.

 

I'd be curious to know if there was a reason the (I assume) quick production of this movie was sandwiched in between Ninja: SoaT and the upcoming Undisputed 4 - a brief, week-or-so-long hole in Scott Adkins' schedule they wanted to take advantage of, perhaps, or some sort of reason involving getting Undisputed 4 up and running... It's certainly not something that shouts "We had this great idea for an action movie and just had to do it!"

 

Again, what little fight action there is shines - Florentine is on a short list of directors who handle on-screen fight action superbly, complimenting and adding to the choreography with great camerawork and editing, and he definitely hasn't lost his touch here... Unfortunately, 15 minutes of action and 75 minutes of almost entirely single-location filler does not an exciting time at the movies make. Go re-watch "Broken Path" if you want a home invasion martial arts movie done right.

[AlbertV]

XLrator Media already announced a DVD/Blu-Ray date of January 5, 2016.

 

Plus, this afternoon, I did a brief 10-minute phone interview with Scott Adkins himself about the film.

https://worldfilmgeek.wordpress.com/2015/12/03/interview-with-scott-adkins-star-of-close-range/

 

 

[DrNgor]

I spent the first half of the movie finding it endlessly funny that Jake La Botz, who plays the jerk husband Walt, looks like what I'd imagine Tom Holland to look like in 20 years, with a dash of Robert Patrick, too.

[DrNgor]

Posted a full-length review for my 2015 review here: https://abeautifulfilm.blogspot.com/2024/08/close-range-2015.html