Review of Abstraction (2013) by Jon S — 24 Feb 2014

Review by Sky Tallone.

The film opens with a nicely done heist scene with a nice performance by Eric Roberts (The Dark Knight). From there, the story follows two of the criminals who pulled the heist, best friends who have decided to get out of the crime game. Our protagonist Tommy (Hunter Ives) falls in love with a beautiful woman named Scarlet (Korrina Rico), who brings him some information on an art heist they could do that would set them up for life. Full of action and plot twists with fantastic acting from everyone, especially Richard Manriquez who plays Tommy's partner in crime, Gary. Ken Davitian (Borat) also plays a vital character. Every single element of this film was incredibly well-done. It's beautiful and polished with high production quality, action, good characters and a well-written story. There were certain story elements that I felt were a bit of a stretch, certain things that didn't seem realistic.

I got a chance to speak with the director Prince Bagdasarian as well as both lead actors after the screening and learned that the script was constantly being rewritten throughout the production to accommodate unexpected changes in production, and they did a great job. They more than deserved the awards they got. If anything could have been better, it would be some of the smaller details of the story and the dialogue. It's more of a drama than an action film which makes it a bit more difficult to market, but it's definitely worth watching and never feels slow or too long. Great acting, natural and real characters, and some absolutely gorgeous bigger-than-life shots. Prince said that shooting took place over the course of about six months, but the project was in the works for nearly two years from script to final cut, and done on a very modest budget considering the result. Very very impressive, definitely check this one out.