Warden1

6/10

Spoilers

A standard if disappointing action thriller. This was hyped up a lot as a project from The Critical Drinker, a novelist and youtube reviewer who heavily focuses on criticism of fictional media, usually in the writing department. This short film, or rather a "TV series proof of concept" as its said in the youtube title, was supposed to be a really good action piece and a showcase of how to do good writing and action, and a refutation of mediocre hollywood efforts. In reality, the whole thing rises to a barely above average effort. The cinematography and action are decent enough, but the music is oddly placed and paced throughout, with some tracks feeling out of place. For example, you have the choir music during an action scene and it feels completely out of place. That kind of music is more akin to mythological action scenes or war scenes, not shoot outs in a warehouse. The writing as well is disappointing. The story is of the standard action thriller variety, with almost nothing special about it. Then we move to the characters, which fare better but are also not very good or well defined, and the traits they do have seem odd, which are emphasized more because of the uneven acting and thus also a fault with the direction. What's worse is that the main character Ryan Drake himself gets almost sidelined in his own short film (or more like a tv pilot). The side characters were more interesting and likeable and the villain was more interesting. There just wasn't much unique or interesting written into Ryan's character as he's very generic. Then he gets sidelined by a woman who we saw a bit in the beginning and then she disappears for most of the episode until she arrives at the end and steals the spotlight from Drake himself, both in the action and in the finality of the ending, further worsening Drake's character. That's a bad joke and something The Critical Drinker himself would criticize and joke about, yet he's committed the same sins he often criticizes.