This film is directed by Panos Cosmatos who I have never heard of but right from the start I recognize he has a very unique style. The screen beams bright colors and what I assume are camera flares making some scenes reminiscent of a war scene. There is a very heavy synth score and quiet dialog between the melancholy turns bat shit crazy for Nickolas Cage and his partner Mandy played by Andrea Riseborough. This film has a lot of great actors like Richard Blake, Olwen Fouéré, and Bill Duke and more that might surprise you. You might find yourself asking what the fuck is going on and that would the right thing to do, though this one sort of comes around,this is what I consider too artsy. I appreciate any film for being different so I love artsy film, I would just think some films are a great exercise in lighting and score and all the aspects of film minus the storytelling. Making a nightmare sequence does not strike me as the most challenging aspect of film making. This is rape revenge but substitute the rape for religious cult stuff. Two hours is a long movie especially for a wild ride like this one and this film feels long at times it does not give up on the intensity of the premise. This is not always my cup of tea, but I have to give it credit where it is due and I think there are a plethora of great looking and sounding scenes. This is a beautiful film to look at in some moments and gory as fuck in others. A gory 7 of 10 in my opinion. I did not like it maybe as much as the score reflects, I score it because I know it is well done, it is a lot of fluff around a very simple story so it is artsy but you can follow it and that is the low bar I set for films that come off to me as trying a little too hard. To top it all off I found the ending is kind of strange and anticlimactic.
