Storyline
Featured review
Stillborn drama, pretentious and unsatisfying
Like many recent Wicked Pictures releases there is no screenplay credit displayed for "Red Light", an irritating feature that proves erstwhile cameraman turned director Hank Hoffman is not ready for the professional kick upstairs.
This misguided and failed drama seems to be under the influence of that dreaded latterday Hollywood trend of adapting Chaos Theory to scripts, most notably reflected in that unearned Best Picture Oscar winner by Paul Haggis: "Crash". PH should have stuck with Scientology, and HH with taking still photographs.
Opening scene establishes the misleading title, as Chanel Preston picks up stud Damon Dice while her car is stopped at a red traffic light. He would seem to be a gigolo based on appearance and happenstance, but turns out to be a guy she exchanged glances with at a party the night before. She takes him home for humping, to drive away momentarily the despair she's feeling, which she verbally expresses in what borders on a case of extreme depression. Existentialism, anyone?
Before you can say Jean-Paul Sartre, the Chaos structure takes over the movie, as Chanel's roommate Kleio Valentien happens to drive past their car, Dice driving it this time. Kleio becomes distraught when she finds their pad trashed and Chanel missing, and calls on friends and anybody within earshot to drop everything and try to find the Gone Girl.
Thus begins a series of coincidences and cryptic scenes, with idiotic verbal exposition interjected in lame attempts to make the story seem credible -it ain't. Kleio has her own "dangerous sex with a stranger" encounter when she picks up Ryan Driller in her car, humps him pointlessly in a warehouse and then drops him like a hot potato after the cum shot, leaving poor Ryan as bewildered as the viewer back home in Video land.
This hopping into a car motif is trotted out twice more with idiotic results. Casey Calvert jumps into Derrick Pierce's passenger seat out of nowhere and regales him (with suddenly poor sound recording making her dialog nearly unintelligible) with a story of having been with Chanel last night as Preston watched CC make love to Dice, which we see in flashback. She hops out of Pierce's car afterward cryptically, and doesn't even get a character name here.
Just as suddenly, Lea Lexis hops into Pierce's car and services him, thankfully after the vehicle is safely parked. Pierce is supposedly helping in the search for Chanel.
Also pitching in are friends Skin Diamond and Bree Daniels, latter receiving top billing in the opening & closing credits, unearned. They have lesbian sex in a motel but otherwise contribute zero to the quest.
Film ends abruptly after Pierce's money shot for Lea, leaving Chanel's fate hanging in what has turned out to be just another shaggy-dog story out of the Coen Bros. playbook. Maybe Joel & Ethan, hard up late in their career, penned this horrible screenplay.
This misguided and failed drama seems to be under the influence of that dreaded latterday Hollywood trend of adapting Chaos Theory to scripts, most notably reflected in that unearned Best Picture Oscar winner by Paul Haggis: "Crash". PH should have stuck with Scientology, and HH with taking still photographs.
Opening scene establishes the misleading title, as Chanel Preston picks up stud Damon Dice while her car is stopped at a red traffic light. He would seem to be a gigolo based on appearance and happenstance, but turns out to be a guy she exchanged glances with at a party the night before. She takes him home for humping, to drive away momentarily the despair she's feeling, which she verbally expresses in what borders on a case of extreme depression. Existentialism, anyone?
Before you can say Jean-Paul Sartre, the Chaos structure takes over the movie, as Chanel's roommate Kleio Valentien happens to drive past their car, Dice driving it this time. Kleio becomes distraught when she finds their pad trashed and Chanel missing, and calls on friends and anybody within earshot to drop everything and try to find the Gone Girl.
Thus begins a series of coincidences and cryptic scenes, with idiotic verbal exposition interjected in lame attempts to make the story seem credible -it ain't. Kleio has her own "dangerous sex with a stranger" encounter when she picks up Ryan Driller in her car, humps him pointlessly in a warehouse and then drops him like a hot potato after the cum shot, leaving poor Ryan as bewildered as the viewer back home in Video land.
This hopping into a car motif is trotted out twice more with idiotic results. Casey Calvert jumps into Derrick Pierce's passenger seat out of nowhere and regales him (with suddenly poor sound recording making her dialog nearly unintelligible) with a story of having been with Chanel last night as Preston watched CC make love to Dice, which we see in flashback. She hops out of Pierce's car afterward cryptically, and doesn't even get a character name here.
Just as suddenly, Lea Lexis hops into Pierce's car and services him, thankfully after the vehicle is safely parked. Pierce is supposedly helping in the search for Chanel.
Also pitching in are friends Skin Diamond and Bree Daniels, latter receiving top billing in the opening & closing credits, unearned. They have lesbian sex in a motel but otherwise contribute zero to the quest.
Film ends abruptly after Pierce's money shot for Lea, leaving Chanel's fate hanging in what has turned out to be just another shaggy-dog story out of the Coen Bros. playbook. Maybe Joel & Ethan, hard up late in their career, penned this horrible screenplay.
helpful•00
- lor_
- Nov 21, 2018
Details
- Runtime1 hour 27 minutes
- Color
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