Review of Thumper

While the lead actor, Eliza Taylor, and others do well at building the chemistry between each other, this is only half of the film; the half that takes on the seamy underbelly of the Street drug dealing world seems contrived and the film suffers from a poorly written script, made-for-t.v. acting, and direction that seems scattered and poorly put together. Yes, it might have been a great film, but the focus of what the director presents seems tired and condescending to the viewer. That is, some of the film feels like it wants to build down-to-earth, close relationships between characters who seem sincere. The drug sub-culture parts of the plot displays a lack of understanding of the drug sub-culture and lingo. While this might have been finessed by employing less talk and more affect, the director fails to dovetail the human aspect with the moral one, makes it difficult to identify fully with any one of the characters. The subject matter ends up a drawn-out garbled message that was the main underplot of the entire project; the battle between separating good and evil from the grey emotional places in-between.This may have been better accomplished with less dialogue. Dialogue that sound more like a t.v. crime show rather than the decent indie-style film that it spends more time with. The half half that resembles a television series totally decimated what the character building phase accomplished. There is no happy medium. One comes away from the film feeling like hostages on a very slow, predictable amusement park ride - too long, too boring, and not worth the viewer's effort. Wish the entire crew the best, and hope that next time the director focuses more on overall continuity than wandering around taking us on an obvious message that spends too much time pretending the script is adequate, rather than spending time editing.

The initial idea was probably well-intentioned, but this subject matter, once bitten into, seems more than the professionals who made this can effectively chew. Overall very unsatisfying. Four stars only for efforts actor Eliza Taylor, who provided brief moments if engaging and captivating realism.