Into the Storm
Director: Steven Quayle
Talent: Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Max Deacon
Release Date: 22nd August 2014
A found footage film’s strength lies in its ability to bring you closer to its action through a manufactured sense of authenticity and reality. As numerous as these releases have become in recent years, it’s easy to forget that pulling off a decent imitation of actuality is no easy feat.
It’s in its attempt at replicating the various authentic views from GoPros to cellphones and newscasts that Into the Storm falls short, and nothing brings you out of the action faster than a slight inconsistency in perspective.
More than once the film collapses under its own premise, lapsing into the visual language of narrative cinema to fill in for a lack of faked cellphone footage. These sections are jarring and clumsy, revealing its main gimmick to be just that: a gimmick, nothing more or less. The various vignettes that make up the narrative are simple and relatively engaging, and the SFX are to be commended: with a well managed balance of computer and practical effects they manage to be the best thing about the film. Like a storm then, the film is loud and furious but over very quickly: ultimately, a massive headache.
Words: Luke Marshall
For more film coverage this month, see our reviews of Moebius, The Hundred Foot Journey, The Congress, Million Dollar Arm, Deliver Us From Evil, Obvious Child, The Expendables 3 and We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.
