Lights, Camera, Action!

Last night Tanya and I went to our first ever World Movie Premier! The film was called Shades of Blue, and the premier took place at the Bloor Cinema. The film was produced and directed by Alex Freitas, a friend of mine since 2nd grade—his brother Carlos wrote it. Alex also appeared in the film along with another buddy of mine from high school named Phil MacFadden.

It was a little strange and very exciting to see these two guys whom I’ve known and grown up with on the big screen. Whenever they made an appearance, it was surreal because there was Alex and Phil, only they weren’t acting like themselves, quite the contrary, they were acting like these gun-toting rogue cops shooting up bad guys and driving fancy cars — well, Alex drove the fancy car, after all, there has to be some perk to being the director.

About the Film

After looking too closely into his daughters’ murder, top homicide detective Dominic Nash (Zan Calabretta – “American Soldiers”) is wrongfully suspended from the force with influence from the city’s most dangerous and corrupt figure – porn producer Michael Wiley (Patrick Micallef). Nash’s ex-partner and closest friend, Luke Sullivan (Phil MacFadden), now partnered with rookie detective Danny Christian (Shaughnessy Redden), continues to aid Nash throughout his unstable emotional quest to avenge his daughter’s murder. As the bodies pile up and the pieces start falling into place, it’s Danny who quickly realizes that this dream job is not as glamorous as he once thought it to be, and that in the end justice is not always on the right side of the law.

— Synopsis provided by Freitas Films

Now before I go on to tell you what I thought about the movie, I should let you in on a couple of facts. Firstly, the entire film was shot on a $5k budget, that’s microscopic by any standards. Second, this is Freitas Films‘ first feature-length film—their only other production was a 30-minute short which I have not seen yet. Finally, due to the budget, all of the cast and crew worked on this project as volunteers, and amateur actors, including Alex, who—despite being in and around films shoots as an extra—is a rookie filmmaker himself.

Now, having said that…

As would be expected the film has a Lo-Fi (indy) quality to it. Sometimes it works really well, sometimes it doesn’t. Since this was shot—I’m assuming—in digital, there were scenes where the quality of the picture was uneven from one cut to another. This can probably be attributed to minimal lighting experience and/or equipment. The sound quality also—at times—left something to be desired. Often we miss out on what is being said because of background noise or simply poor microphone placement. Putting mics on the actor’s bodies and a better sound mix would have helped a great deal. Once again, this is probably a result of budget constraints.

The script and the editing could also have been tightened up a bit. Dialogue relied a little too much on cop-genre clichés and at times seemed comical in parts where comedy was not intended. Some scenes ran way longer than they needed. If these scenes were tightened up in spots and cut shorter in others, the film would not have lost anything, and what it would have gained in better timing and pace, would have made a world of difference.

All of these issues can be largely attributed to the production constraints and lack of experience, so I won’t harp any further on them, but they needed to be mentioned.

On the positive side…

This film had everything any guy could want in a film: action, sex, violence, beautiful women and even some comedic elements thrown in for good measure.

Freitas Films likes to refer to this film as a character-driven story, and here is where the film does succeed. There were some surprisingly good acting performances. Indie film or not, I was very impressed with them. The following are the most notable ones:

The film’s star was Zan Calabretta, who plays the tormented Dominic Nash, an ex-cop who lost everything including his wife and young daughter. Zan handled some difficult scenes with intensity and subdued rage. He showed some definite acting talent and had the screen magnetism of a young Richard Grieco—although I think Zan is a better actor.

Nicole Sullivan provided one of the better performances in the film as the porn king’s extorting wife.

Patrick Micalleff does a great job of making everyone hate him as he plays the villainous Michael Wiley. By the end of the film, you’ll hate him too.

Shaugnessy Redden as rookie cop Danny Christian delivered a good performance, lapping up screen time and seeming to love every minute of it. He did deliver one of the film’s biggest laughs—though probably unintentionally—when during an intense scene near the end, he confronts his one-night-stand-turned-killer girlfriend. I won’t give away any more, but I will say this, even though it may not have been intentionally funny, he delivered a silly line with conviction as if he really meant it making it really funny.

Tony Porfilio is also strong as the always-in-your-face IA Agent Manter, although he shines best when he’s dealing with his own internal affairs.

Rookie actor Phil MacFadden plays—ironically—veteran cop Luke Sullivan. You may not know it from watching this film, but in real life, Phil is one of the funniest guys I know. He’s like Robin Williams in that—when he’s on, he’s really on and you can’t keep up with him. His turn as the wily cop Sully is a bit stiff at times, but there are instances, when Phil does disappear into his character and I was left watching—not an old high school buddy, but a grizzled veteran cop. During those times Phil shines and I think that it was just a matter of taking the time to get the scenes right. My guess is that since the shooting schedule was so cramped, they didn’t always have that luxury. Nonetheless, I suspect that when the DVD comes out, if there are any funny outtakes, I’ll bet the farm that Phil is involved in most of the good ones.

The combination of Anita Leeman and Alex Freitas provide some of the film’s more stylish scenes as they pull a few Tarantinoesque turns as a couple of sexy rogue cops who go around the city busting bad guys and keeping all the proceeds. I really enjoyed these scenes. Not a whole lot of acting between these two, but definitely a lot of posing and some pretty hot chemistry. They were pure fun and it was pretty difficult to keep your eyes off Leeman, who seemed to ooze sex-appeal. I won’t comment on Alex’s sex-appeal as it would be like me saying my own brother is hot. It’s not that he isn’t—he very well may be—it’s just that I wouldn’t be the foremost authority on the matter. I could see these two characters appearing in other Freitas Films productions, much like Jay & Silent Bob appear in all of Kevin Smith’s films…only less profane and much, much more attractive.

Finally there is Mark Robinson as Needles, Shades of Blue‘s version of Huggy Bear—that is to say, he was the comic relief and the token black guy. He helps the sexy cop duo score their busts and provides us with most of the film’s intentional laughs. Robinson seemed right at home in his role and he played it with the zeal and comedic timing of a Chris Tucker adding his own style, leaving the audience asking for more scenes with his character.

Those aren’t all the performers, but they are the most notable. The rest of the cast—for the most part—did their jobs adequately considering—once again—the time and budgetary constraints.

Another plus for this film was the cinematography. While there were issues with lighting and editing, I found an artistic quality in many of the shots in this film that showed imagination and an inherent talent and vision by both Cinematographer Richard Fiander and Director Alex Freitas. I see a tonne of potential that can be built on and I can see this team developing their own style. The rest of the technical issues can be worked on and resolved, but you can’t teach creativity and talent, these two have that in abundance.

One final positive note was the music in this film which did a great job of providing colour and mood to the scenes.

I think that as far as their first feature film goes, Freitas Films have shown they can get a lot done with very little. They’ve shown tenacity, resourcefulness and—most importantly—passion. I think they’ve earned the right to show us what they can do with a proper budget, script and crew. I’m not just saying this because Alex is my friend and I want to be invited to his next premier, I actually mean it.