Warning! This one is a slap in the face! This film is more than its simple pitch (teens who have screwed up are sent to a juvenile reform facility to get them back on the right track). In reality, it’s a total blowminder.
You will soon realize that the cure is worse than the disease because the truth is, this kind of camp is not regulated by any laws.
This is the story of Brad Lunders interpreted by PJ Boudousqué Ryan Gosling’s doppelganger who has his physic and obviously his talent. This is actually a thriller whose tension takes you from beginning to end.
Even with very little budget, the directing is effective. Filming a place in isolation could bring some redundancy but the director avoids it beautifully. First, through the use of flashbacks that enable him reveals more on its mysterious hero and by the suspense he manages to put in his film. You snapped as Brad since the very first images where he is abruptly removed from his home at night without knowing why or how. The film does not fall into pathos, too stereotyped characters (even if the camp chief is like expect: really despicable) or shocking scenes (the clever editing only shows what it is needed). You think the film deals with a retired militaries camp that are bit nuts until the film changes.
Like “Blue Ruin” released the same week, “Coldwater” shows beyond the camps themselves, that violence solves nothing, it spreads…
The film also deals with men reduced to their most basic instincts like the survival one. What are we able to do to survive? How far should we go for what we believe is “moral”?
You feel the rage that animates the characters, you feel their confinement, the plight of young people “detained”…
You also notice the soundtrack composed of classical music, anxious songs composed by Chris Chatham and Mark Miserocchi and country songs performed by Kevin Fisher.
Here is a sample .
A film we loved with a real screenplay, a mastered directing and a charismatic actor who carries the film! Pass the other movies of the week and go see this one
