Straight Into Darkness (2004)

the audience applauded

Am I Missing Something?

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

I have to confess I only watched the second half of this movie. On TV, not in a theater.But it made a very strong impression on me. The music. The slow-mo scenes. The lighting. The dialog.War films are usually very predictable and categorical. This one is original and subtle instead. Arty, even.But it is still a war film, full of gore and blood.So, if you're sensitive enough to be touched by the beauty, but not too squirmy to be put away by the violence, you will certainly like this one.

Well I watched this film really not knowing what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised though, but I don't think the word "pleasant" best describes what I felt. The opening scene was powerful, several GI's in a jeep heading away from the front lines. Jeff Burr really knows where to place the camera--he gets great coverage and you really see a lot of the work that goes into every shot, it is visually very stunning. The actors and situations were very well done. The characters were very disturbing and the film bordered between horror and suspense. I don't want to reveal what happened, but while the middle of the film meandered from one situation to another, the end packed quite a punch, with a lot of shooting and explosions. The most controversial elements of the film involved Roumanian children in the movie--but if you watch the documentary on the making of the film--it will open eyes to how this picture was made, and the documentary is very honest and tells you things that you would never have known.I was changed after watching this film! Highly recommend if you like war, mixed with horror and suspense.

OK, this movie is horrible. Just FYI. On the off chance that you haven't seen it and might choose to subject yourself to this painful waste of celluloid, CAUTION SPOILERS OMG! So, where to start. Let's try at the beginning! The first scene is AWFULLY familiar... like a direct ripoff of Aleksandr Rogozhkin's "Kukushka". Prisoner being transported by MPs.... Jeep gets blown up, prisoner escapes. That is forgivable, though, as the following scene is pretty cool. Then it all starts to go downhill. So we have two characters, one a sensitive type who's lost and confused, and the other a psychopathic evil type who smashes a dead man's face to an unrecognizable pulp just to fake his own death. I'll call them Misty and the Psycho. Psycho makes Misty come along with him on a random wandering through "Western Europe". So they find a church with a cannibal in it. Psycho wants to kill the cannibal, but Misty got the gun now! Then the cannibal follows them around for a while and then kills himself. Doesn't eat them, doesn't do anything.... just hangs himself. Thanks, Jeff Burr, for this enlightening statement about NOTHING. So then our two heroes find a horse. They ride the horse to an old building and shack up for the night. In the morning, along come two people just back from a hunting trip. Psycho pulls his gun on them, knocks Misty out with the butt of it when Misty starts telling him to stop, and proceeds to play with the old woman's boobies, while the old man has already expressed rebellious tendencies. So, let's clear this up: Psycho wants the old man to watch him play with old lady boobs? Thanks again, Jeff! Since that makes sense! Oh, but this pathetic plot device leaps into clarity when the old man gets the gun from Psycho and captures him and Misty. Turns out this building is a hideout for the old man and old woman and their entourage of deformed and crazy orphans which they've trained to be anti-Nazi partisans.(oh, if I'm accidentally making this sound exciting, it isn't... when drawn out over about half an hour of random shots of foliage, pipes, and flashbacks that have no context or relevance). Oh, and then the Nazis show up. 60 of them, and a tank. Our heroes don't hide. Then a bunch of random fighting ensues where the Nazis don't want to kill them but they're too stupid to figure it out, and we discover that the reason the Nazis are here is to get at a cache of "art" hidden under a trap door in the building.... and by "art" I mean "The production company couldn't afford a poster of the Mona Lisa so I picked this up at a garage sale last weekend!" type "art". All I got to say is the Nazis were probably pretty depressed when they got to the art. So after about 300 or so Nazis are killed (note there were only 60 at the beginning) Misty sneaks out the back door with the remainder of the kids while Psycho causes a distraction. Also, I forgot to mention that the Nazis OFFERED TO LET THEM GO at one point and they were like "NO WAI JOO STEENKY KROWTS! WE WILL FIGHT TO THE AIND!". In fact, they really just sat there with no plan and then, after maximum carnage had been achieved (really incredibly boring carnage, might I add), they snuck away despite the fact that the Nazis "had them surrounded" earlier.... So anyways, Psycho screams "I AM THE CONQUEROR WORM!" about three times as he dies, and I die once each time he screams it. Talk about most incredibly retarded one liner ever. Seriously, why not just have him scream "I AM THE RED DEATH!!" or "QUOTH THE RAVEN: NEVERMORE MOTHERF**KERS" or something.... In conclusion, this movie is a pile of rat turds. Don't be fooled by the "independent film" label, this movie is only independent because Jeff Burr saved up enough money from directing such gems as "Pumpkinhead II" and "Puppet Master 5" that he could afford to go into co-production with a Romanian pimp and pay $3 a head for the crappy actors he got and push this baby into the world!

Somehow this film has been under promoted, under acknowledged and under represented. It is true fine art. And moving and full of heart and brilliance. The film must have flowed from Burr's subconscious in a way that masterpieces are formed. It is definitely not a "horror" film. And it is much more than a WWII film. You can reach a vast and personal range of interpretations, but at the very least, it leaves you with something that will stay in your mind and soul for ever. Put it up there with "Shindlers List" at least.Someone please pass this on to Jeff. I think that he dosen't realize what he has created here.Thanks Jef Burr ...It takes lots of courage to express this kind of brilliance.