Reviewed by James Quicksell

Well well well here it is folks. Three years in the making and what we get is not a visually stunning movie, in fact a lot of it is rather badly animated, but a rather solid drama with a bit of comedy thrown in to liven up the mood a bit. I had no idea really what to expect from this movie aside from a few perverted jokes but I really found none and got drawn in by the complex albeit somewhat confusing web of characters that seemed to be related to each other somehow, a lot by rich-poor, boss-employee, father-son relationships.

After my crappy intro 'hark0re entertainment' intro rolls through the viewer is put directly into the action, showing Robert Domkey getting fired from his job and taking out his anger on the boss. This scene I thought was not done in the best way but it was enough of a hook to kinda make you feel for Robert's character. A nice setup for the rest of the movie, considering we follow Robert a lot around. A few more characters are introduced and we slowly begin to see how one character relates to another, like how one of the cops sons is used by Robert to drive him to the gun store where he eventually holds up about six or seven of the other characters.

What intrigued me the most was the way Ching seemed to manipulate the characters to help each other see through their problems. A lot of stuff dealing with suicide and cheating/lying relationships are dealt with throughout the movie, a hard task but well done. The interaction between the characters, especially Mr. Penn and Tim really made the viewer grow an immense sense of hatred for Mr. Penn and the little bit of dark humor at the end involving Mr. Penn can really be appreciated.

Now the story. Overall the story was ok, nothing terribly deep but Ching worked it, and he worked it well. Armed with a well-developed cast of characters the plot unfolded almost by itself. I especially liked how Tim and Jim seemed to help each other out throughout the movie (yeah yeah laugh about my little soft spot) and the chemistry between Mr and Mrs Weatherbee. The idea of a hostage situation seemed unlikely and kinda strange at first for a drama but after seeing how Ching did it it worked nicely (gah I'm sounding like a broken record but this needs to be stressed a lot). By the end you really felt for some of the characters and really hated the rest, something I've only seen in very few 3DMM movies.

Animation wise I'm gonna be blunt. It really could've used some help. But it's Jeff Ching we're talking about here so I'll cut him some slack. I'm gonna agree with Farnoy or Jorrit or whoever said it when I say "This took 3 years?!". Oh well the wait was worth it. I noticed that even a few scenes like the goodbye scene and the hospital scene you could tell were guest animated. Nothing wrong with that though since even though you noticed the difference you don't really mind at all.

The voice acting here was good in some spots and shaky in the other. Dustin Guest did a fairly good job and Jaymond delivered strongly. His last speech at Rob's grave was very moving, you can't deny that. Katrina's voice acting, as I've always noticed with hers, was really low. It's almost as if her mic is five feet away or something and she has the same calm tone throughout the movie but it wasn't all that terrible. Aside from that the rest was pretty average but not bad.

Overall hats off to Jeff Ching for giving us a solid drama. I was truly surprised and impressed in the way he handled this movie. I really can't wait for another movie by him now with a story like this and I'm proud to have this movie under the hardk0re entertainment label. Excellent job.

9.2/10