User Reviews

As mentioned by other commenters, this movie has a great feel to it. The atmosphere and settings are well done, possibly better than most big-budget films. The acting is exceptional, despite having an unknown cast (unknown to me, anyway).

The plot starts out pretty good, with an opening scene that truly captures the audience's attention. Things get spiced up, initially, when you realize that the movie goes back and forth in chronology; however, as the timeline-skipping continues, it starts to get confusing and annoying. Then, as the movie climaxes, you're left with a "what the hell was the point?" ending.

I think the writers of this movie confused themselves and decided to just end the movie. There was no point and I didn't even see anything about karma in here. It tried to teach a lesson on karma without fully understanding karma itself. It could have been so much better but it failed miserably.

Still, I was entertained throughout this movie, until about the last 25% of the movie. If you have a dollar and some change, pick it up at your local Red Box. I wouldn't purchase this movie, though.

(From the back of the video box.) Who's there? Nobody.

On a cold and endless winter night a ruthless assassin (Mandylor) commits a murder and ignites a sequence of mysterious events that spiral beyond his control.

Narrowly escaping a savage attack by a shadowy assailant who seems to anticipate his every move, time begins to fold in on itself. People he meets don't remember him. Wounds he sustains vanish from his skin. He becomes caught up in an inexplicable loop where events eerily repeat themselves, until an ominous phone call confirms the impossible: his mysterious would-be victim is still alive.

Forced to relive his actions over and over, the circle closes in—ending in a fateful confrontation with…himself.

My opinion--save yourself the time of watching this movie. It is so convoluted that even at the end, you still have no clue about what you just saw. This movie is a down-ward spiral.

First and foremost, I am no film critic. I'm just a guy that enjoys watching movies and dicussing them. This is merely my opinion, take or leave it.

Ok... Let's state this plainly. There are many, many people that work very hard to create, edit and etc... for films, and I (and hopefully others) personally appreciate the effort you and your brethren take in providing us with entertainment. Thank you!

That said.... you have got to get the writers to step up and complete their thoughts!?!

The finished product presented her feels anything BUT that... finished!

PROS: Gritty looking cinematography, well shot, intense actor portrayals.... everything the film presents should be applauded as positive (especially as an obvious indie film), fantastic concepts and thoughts of characters and settings

CONS: seeming lack of direction (writing-wise, conceptually, overall story) there was no resolution, but the film didn't present enough conceptual substance or growth of charactets or story to "end" the way it did.

SPOILERS:

So, if you manage to stay intrigued throughout the intro and they somehow decide to continue forward into meat of the film, it is as explained above... an indie film that intrigues, but falls short of completion of a story but instead ends open ended alluding to a never-ending cycle attributed to Karma, but fails to seem compelling and feels more like "well we don't really have idea for resolution, let's just leave it open ended, to seem 'introspective'..."

In complete honesty, reading through the other reviews while "watching" the film were my motivation to watch and complete the movie. So I could feel justified to be able to confirm the overall sentiment.

"Supportive of the 'art' created.... but need some more substance to leave your audience in contemplative, existential consideration."

There might be quite some people on this planet, who would say, the film doesn't make sense, there is no sense in it, or the story is not good or doesn't make any sense.

But this is just quite the kind of art which the movie uses, to make your active conscious brain loose it's sense, it's power, it's need to understand things. The movie takes you on a journey from the rational to the irrational and to the point where you understand even the irreal, which in my opinion is the whole goal of the film.

Explanation of the movie (spoiler, read it when you have seen it, or before to understand the movie): The movie shows you a story of a man who killed someone.

The story takes twists, shows you different perspectives of the plot, and at a point fixes loose ends not by telling you a rational story, but by showing you, that the man who is told to kill, is in the end on an irreal journey to kill himself, when you realize this, that is the point where loose ends meet and you see a circle in the idea of meaning, that doesn't make sense in a rational way, but in an irreal way it totally makes sense (for your other brain hemisphere, that is there for feelings, dreams, irrational and irreal things, that just can't work, but in dreams very often things are not possible and just DO work and make sense in an irrational way).

the movie is pure art. with a story, that elevates into endlessness, because the man stands for the rational thinking that wants to understand the irrational side, what is not possible. so he keeps to kill himself in his own story and thoughts over and over and doesn't find the exit, because the exit can't be found in a rational way.

the gatekeeper is a woman who sits at the exit and represents a part in our brain/world (philosophically). she makes a fortune and gets a gold coin every time the rational thinker get hysteric over wanting to understand irrational things in a rational way.

in my opinion she represents the "knowledge" of his own brain over what is happening. you can only find the exit through instinct, and understanding of your feelings, and only the first time you experience and live situations.

every time he thinks again about a situation, anything gets more blurry until he finds himself in a circle of actions he can't undo, he is the active part (the killer) (who takes actions) and the passive part (the one who get's killed) (who experiences the effects of other people's thinking (even his own)).

other people i watched the movie with, didn't understand the movie and just thought they didn't understand the story and it was a bad movie.

but the story is there to make no sense, to lift your rational thinking and start understanding things on a more irrational and irreal basis that make sense nonetheless in it's own form of existence.

I was thinking 1 hour in if you have a mediocre movie, tell the story in reverse, add a sprinkling of groundhog and you'll make it rather more interesting.

BUT, this movie is actually much deeper and far more cerebral than we, at first, suspect.

It is really a _Dantë_ tale of the perpetual torture of the soul of an assassin who, when he finally discovers the way to break the cycle and eventual release from his eternal hell, is by killing himself until he finally awakens to the realisation that there is NO escape and further, indeed, has to atone for committing his own suicide.

You have to think though, is the Devil, here played by ye olde witche , collected enough karmic souls from him? In other words, was that money chest full OR NOT? YOU DECIDE!