Final Draft (2007)

Undescribable Perfection

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

What we have here is a story of a young screen writer suffering from psychological disorders who locks himself in his apartment, in a desperate attempt to complete a script for a film after a long break from writing, while struggling with many inner demons. This theme of artists facing deadlines while dealing with some sort of great inner turmoil has been done countless times, so needless to say, for it to be effective here, they would have had to bring something new or creative to the table. There really is a lot of potential with this subject, as it's very interesting see a screenplay writer under huge pressure slowly unravel. As a writer, let me say that when under extreme pressure, or having spent long amounts of time alone writing, its really NOT uncommon to begin talking to oneself or acting things out in the room. The real question this film puts forth is where is the line between method and insanity, where is the persons breaking point, and at what point do the mere illusions and acting become reality if you're in a particularly unstable state of mind.The final cut of this movie has many problems with it, and foremost being that marketed as a horror film, the horror is more or less non existent. You have an evil clown who pretty much doesn't do anything but stand and look evil, and tonnes of side characters hallucinated by the main actor who bicker back and forth with him, until one by one they are done away with on screen while all the long, the viewer KNOWS it's fake anyways. The director simply was too inept and uncreative to come up with anything creepy or genuinely scary enacted out. EVEN IF it was all just figments of the main characters imagination, it could have been creepy or scary just in its mere conception, and here stems the rest of the film's problems.I first saw portions of this film on the space channel, and quite unusually for me, with random films I catch on TV, I badly wanted to get a copy. The scene that impressed me had the main character delivering a long very well written monologue to the camera, raving about the strife he had with his ex girlfriend. It was very powerful and gave huge background and insight into the character, and what was really mentally driving him over the edge. An insight which you didn't find in any way, in the version I acquired, as in that version, this scene was cut out, and it's very easy to see why. In fact there were many scenes with the actor delivering monologues to the screen, giving it almost a semi documentary type feel to it in some places, beautifully painting harsh pictures to the audience with mere words. Firstly, its not uncommon to have more than one version of the same film floating around, and sadly this goes to show us that when the producers come knocking at the door, and they DON'T like "the final draft" if you will, but more accurately, the final cut, they have the power to suck any shred of artistic merit out of a film. The space channel version was really a full fledged psychological drama with a great script, and pretty well done too, but the problem is... it was "SUPPOSED" to be a horror film. Worse still, it had a very European feel to it, and English language films with a European feel just aren't marketable to a North American audience. Clearly the material was re-cut and the end result, though competently put together, was lacklustre, and unoriginal. There was quite a lot of swearing also in the TV version unlike in the version I ended up getting a hold of, so unfortunately I didn't get to see the full space channel version because my mother couldn't handle the swearing, and changed the channel.All said and done, a very tragic state of affairs. The director was able to put together a fairly competent film, but unable to adapt it into a film of "horror" and thus sullying his own name and the name of the screenplay writer with this relatively disappointing film. One example of how competent he was. in some regard, is the scene at the restaurant, where before the writer locks himself in his room, we are given a really clear and unexaggerated glimpse at just the extent of the main character's psychological state and how he is prone to hallucinations, adding a realism which in a huge way sets the stage for the types of things that go on while he is locked away in his apartment, and all in all, keeping the whole thing plausible and not over the top. It is very hard to do this AND deliver true horror to the screen.Indeed anyone who went to see this film and was expecting a horror film SHOULD be angry and feel cheated, because it definitely is not one. If however you're prepared for a decent fairly unoriginal psychological drama, you might still want to give it a try with the context I've put forth here. It is honestly a decent movie for what it is. If you're interested in seeing a film with a similar plot to this one which REALLY hits home, and hits home hard on all fronts in terms of both psychological drama, AND in terms of horror, you might want to check out another Canadian film by he name of "Deadline" - 1981.

Final Draft - A screenwriter (James Van Der Beek) locks himself into his apartment and succumbs to psychosis in an attempt to write a horror script. Not a terrible premise, but the execution is awful. This feels like a first year direction and writing job, and probably is. The director jump cuts the hell out of everything. It's meant to be disorienting. What it IS is annoying. So much so that small chunks of film are incoherent. The writing is predictable, and doesn't use follow through on most of the ideas it offers (bag of oranges). It's like they ran out of time and slap-dashed it together for the Toronto Film Festival.This film is not jaw-droppingly "oh my god it's so bad it's good" bad. It's boring bad, and irritates you for a long time afterward. James Van Der Beek is not a terrible actor, and keeps the ship barely above water. But he's too normal for the kind of psychosis the film tries to offer. He is merely a withdrawn guy who one day sees people and hallucinates things, then decides to act mildly deranged. Cause follows effect. Maybe there's something in the water. Now Darryn Lucio, who plays his "friend", is a terrible actor. He shares the likeness of Chris O'Donald and is even more annoying, a superhuman achievement.The atmosphere the film provides is good (dull gray and somber), but as it's the only thing the film achieves it means nothing. This film wants to be Jacob's Ladder or The Machinist. It isn't even Secret Window. It's the preppy girl in class deciding to turn goth.Not irksomely terrible, but the sheer stupidity of it will ebb at you. I've already put more thought into this critique than the filmmakers did for this.D

First of all... "Final Draft" is not really a horror movie even the burnt creepy clown on the cover and in the trailer might suggest that. If you are in for some classic Clown-Horror kills this might be way wrong for you. The movie is really slow paced and basically just taking place in about 3-5 locations. It deals with a writer named Paul who dreams of an idea for a horror movie script which a friend of him rushes him to finish on a tight deadline of 18 days to get a movie deal for it on a meeting he arranged. The main actor played by Dawsons Creeks James van der Beek is a rather introvert guy and I think James captures his psychological dilemma very well. To deal with his writers block and finish the script without distractions he lets his friend lock him in his apartment for the 2 weeks. From here everything plays in a large, dark and rather empty apartment in a creepy industrial building where Paul hacks on his keyboard desperately trying to finish his story. When he mixes in too much of his personal experiences reality and his story begin to meld together. Beside the main actor I really liked the editing and little use of music which made the movie interesting. Its often hard to grasp whats real and whats imagination since the editing is strongly jumping in time, inter-cutting other sequences and lagging in sound. I think there are some real cool ideas in the script in how the characters Paul puts in his script to be killed by the clown for how they made his life harder start appearing in his apartment and talking to him typing their demise on his keyboard.While Punchy the clown rather acts on the sidelines he delivers his punches in a raw and untypical fashion. Final Draft could really be a great movie if it didn't stretch so much. Its really way to slow and could have been way tighter. There are so many fresh ideas in the script and editing its a shame that the suspense wears off after a while. If you like psychological Movies with horror and drama elements you sure should give this a try even if the movie has its flaws... especially the sound mixing which is way too low in the dialog and the unexplained cuts to events outside the apartment and not related to Pauls script or history put me off a bit.

For anyone who's about to watch this, keep in mind that it's a low-budget indie-film. Don't expect spectacular locations, spectacular plot twists or spectacular acting. The movie moves forward pretty slow and it takes a long time before anything actually happens. I also have a problem with the dialog, which lacks a lot of subtlety. What's wrong with letting the viewers figure out for themselves what's meant by certain lines...Still, the film was enjoyable and I have no problem recommending it to friends. Seeing how there are so few decent horror films out there, this deserves some credit. I felt a bit let down by the last half hour, but that part of the movie does score well on unpredictability.To sum it up: a decent psychological horror movie with okay performances and some intense scenes. Worth the watch if you don't mind a slow pace.6/10