Review of Gabriel (2014) by Ws W — 08 Feb 2016

I mean, first of all, the film has a really misleading poster. It just seems so much like a genre film, and what was fortunately surprising is that it's actually a very real, very honest portrayal of a film topic we've seen countless of times before.

Although we have, it's rare to see it handled like this. The film keeps this harsh tone of menace without actually being a "thriller". It's impressive actually, and it's really impressive how well written the screenplay is.

Rory Culkin is simply superb. The only other thing I've ever seen him in (well, since his kid turn in Signs) is Scream 4 and he was definitely a standout there. He has raw talent that the film was able to give him the opportunity to showcase.

Easily one of the best performances of the year so far. Another standout in the film was Dierdre O'Connell. I'm not sure that the last 10 minutes worked as well as they should have, but the film made its point and it never became anything that betrayed everything that came before it.

I'm really glad I got the opportunity to see his film, highly recommended.