Reviewed by James Quicksell

There are some movies out there that are short but do some justice in the time you watch it. The only movie that I can really relate to Retaliation is Confidence. Both movies are music driven, have no dialogue but are beautifully directed. Unlike Confidence, however, Retaliation tries to tell us a story, a simple one at that but it at least attempts. I think this simple fact is hurting the movie to a lot of viewers because they seem to be wanting some inclination as to what is going on. Personally, I think they might not be looking hard enough.

The movie begins showing a man played by Patrick leaving what appears to be his office. There is no introduction as to who he is or where he is off to or where he even is (we later find out he's coming from work). It's as if Anders is telling the story much in the style of Ernest Hemingway. For people unfamiliar with Hemingway's work basically his stories revolve around a few characters, sometimes they're given names and others not, who are usually in conversation with one another about something that at first seems completely random but later when you analyze it (god damn English 11!) you come to realize that Hemingway is giving us a message through this. Most of the time the reader is thrown into the middle of these peoples lives without any warning and just kinda observe from a distance. This is what I believe Anders was trying to achieve.

It is difficult to narrate this kind of story without any sort of dialogue though which is why the direction here is so key. Now the one thing I will say is that Anders has a great eye for the camera and how a scene should be directed. I was very impressed at how someone who's never released a big movie before already has a better directors eye than 90% of the experienced people on their third or fourth movie. And with the direction much of the scenery and action worked. The lack of plot details though made it hard to follow at times but you can tell that Anders put a lot of effort into trying to make it make sense. The one thing I will so though is that he could've given us a few hints as to who these people were. With some written ID or some flashback that gives us a little insight as to why the man is coming home. Why the girl was murdered. Who were those men that came. It just seemed like the movie had too many unanswered questions that bothered people.

Now the ending was something that was interesting. I wouldn't have thought of it had it not been brought up by another person but it seems that of course after seven years of being framed, the Patrick character came out and by the look on his face (I happened to like the facial expressions Ash!) he looked hellbent on revenge. And then it stopped. It was as if the movie was a movie about getting revenge before it even happened. This could definitely confuse the audience with such a sudden ending but there is more behind it than just that. It is also like a Hemingway story in the fact that you are just left to assume what you want about what happened to the characters. There is no closure. There is no sequel. There is just nothing. It is the viewer that is left to decide the fate of the person at hand. Now I'm not saying this is brilliant or anything but it is a helluva lot better than what most people are perceiving the ending as.

Now the downsides to the movie. Of course as I mentioned the lack of dialogue and essence of each character. This movie leaves too many doors open, too many questions the story can't answer, there just isn't enough. I wouldn't label this movie a failure though, I would label this as something different. Not quite unique but different. A movie that lets the viewer decide the outcome, not shoving the outcome into the viewer's face. This is a movie you need to think about to appreciate and if you don't wanna work that hard well I'm sorry but maybe this movie just wasn't meant for you to watch. I'm not saying you HAVE to appreciate it but don't give up on it just cause the answers aren't already on your plate by the time the ending credits finish rolling.

7.5/10