Patriotic Danger
Matthew Shea’s directorial debut “Patriotic Danger” is an action/thriller starring Masa Gibson as former government assassin David Striker. When David comes home one day to find his girlfriend dead and a hatchet man with a gun to his head, he has to unravel the mystery of who is trying to kill him and why.
What does this movie and “The Matrix” have in common? Guns. Lots of guns. It also featured a wide array of special effects from gun-muzzle fire to bedroom explosions. Aside from the occasional awkward camera angle, this film stands on its own as a pretty decent representation of a nearly one-man crew creating an effects laden feature film on an ultra-low budget. The story uses a lot of the conventions of the big budget action movies generally made by the Hollywood machine and pares them down to a manageable indie level.
Overall, the cast does a good job. They are all relative unknowns with the majority of them having this as their film debut. The lighting for the most part is slightly above par from a flick with a low budget like this one (around $3000). One of the only comments I have on the look of the film come from the locations, which all seem to be gleaned from several neighborhood homes. While this in itself is a good example of an indie director working with what he has available to him, at the same time you have to wonder why none of the neighbors in this movie called the cops on any of these assassins after hearing several gunshots and even an explosion! It’s a bit of a plot hole but one I didn’t think of until after I finished watching the movie.
Matthew Shea is a good example of a filmmaker who made a movie basically in the absence of a crew. It just goes to show that it certainly is possible to make a film on your own, but I can only imagine how the scope of this film may have opened up if some of the other duties were passed off onto other people. Overall, a good and entertaining film, and I can certainly see this doing well on the film festival circuit as well as serving as a calling card to someone looking to finance Matthew’s next film.
