Review of The American Side (2016) by Andy K — 23 Sep 2016

Remember anything from your physics classes in high school? Remember how Tesla was in the utmost frontier in the science of electricity? If you do, STAY AWAY?

The film starts out very well as a neo-noir set in Buffalo, NY. Buffalo is easily the best part of this movie, with the Niagara Falls a close second. So yes, Nicolas Tesla certainly has a connection to Niagara Falls, but he would turn in his grave for this crappy script.

The first half of the movie is slow, but great, and is mainly set in Buffalo and follows a classic film noir formula. The hard boiled PI, lovely beautiful ladies, crimes of passion etc. It works really well, especially with Buffalo as a back drop. The film clearly takes place in modern times, but no carries cell phones, uses the Internet or even have a computer. The furniture and room designs are all very art deco, and it really sets up the mood.

In the second act, everything goes wacky ducky. Did the writers read an article in Newsweek and then light up the weed and starting writing? That would explain a lot, because the script of the second half is a complete mess. It is all ridiculousness and stupidity. "I work for DARPA and I am from the FBI". Yes, its that stupid.

It then goes deep into conspiracy theories, with how Tesla actually was the inventor of every possible electronic invention in the last 150 years, mobile phones, satellites, computers, you name it, Tesla did it all. Now some shitty piece of paper and everyone is killing everyone to get it, and DARPA and FBI, with some Serbian spy agency as a sidekick, is on top of it. Yeah, DARPA did it all because they stole the ideas from Tesla. So yes, Tesla was one of smartest and best scientist to ever walk this earth, well ahead his peers. The authors are well behind. They have no clue what he actually did, only that someone else told them he was such a great guy, and did all these amazing things.

AND, Tesla actually lived pretty close Buffalo for awhile, so lets do movie somehow, if someone is stupid enough to finance, where Tesla is the star. Noir films are great, so we should add that as well. Buffalo is great city, so lets make it take a roll as well, so we can get some local support.

As for science in this movie, what science? I have a PhD in electrical engineering, so yes, I know my Tesla. Tesla is among the top 10 most important scientist, and certainly revolutionary for electrical engineering. But was also radical and somewhat wacky, as was Einstein and co. The reference to mobile phones and computers is interesting, because an important scientific breakthrough in these modern devices are quantum physics and mechanics. Einstein didn't believe in this for a long time, but everyone still considers him one of smartest and innovative persons who ever lived, and rightly so. But for all his genius, he was also very wrong. The same applies for Tesla, his genius got some things right, and thank him for the light switch that turns on your light in the evening, or your heater in winter powered by the electricity grid. He was right on many things, but he was wrong on some others. He was considered mad, because he was certainly wacky, but also a genius but he really was one. Too bad these authors cant recognize that failure may lead to success, and that failure is essential for great success. Failure does not always happen because government wants to steal your ideas for profit. At the very least, it is a very exhausted plot device.