Lullaby (2008)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This movie had potential to be good, no doubt about it, but it turned out as a ludicrous result. I wasn't nowhere near entertained by this movie, and it was solely because of a very poorly stitched together script and storyline.The story is about an American mother who finds out that her son is held at ransom in South Africa. Traveling to Johannesburg, she sets out to find her son and bring him back to the USA.Now, had that only been the storyline then "Lullaby" would have fared so much better, but no, that was not the case. I am not going to spoil anything here, but lets just say that I found this to be a boring and far too out there movie.The acting in the movie was good, but it just wasn't nowhere near enough to salvage the movie, not by a long shot. But watching Melissa Leo rummage all over the slums of Johannesburg could only provide so much entertainment, and it got to be too much too fast.No, this wasn't a particularly good movie in any way.

Hi, Some whistle-blowing here, I am the film composer and own the audio post production studios that facilitated all audio post on this project. We operate the only Dolby Digital credited facilities in South Africa. The audio post budget was extremely tight, $20 000,00 for all sound post including original score (live orchestra) and music licensing, including Dolby license. The producers (Anton Ernst Entertainment) have to date not paid one cent for the sound post and music on this project. All costs of soundtrack production have been carried by my company, Cut & Paste Generation / Kwazi Mojo Media. They have not paid other suppliers either, including, courier services, picture post houses, editors and special effects. I have been composing for film and facilitating state of the art sound post studios for over 20 years now, continually re-investing in our local film industry and hoping for the 'big break' movie that so many of these films have in common when briefing in the work. Me and my crew work extremely hard at creating world class soundtracks, but we're always at the mercy of the production as a whole. There's an industry saying: You can't polish a turd!' (I know myth busters bust this but..!) Bottom line, The producers of this film leveraged the (2008) S.A. film rebate scheme, making themselves profit and not paying the suppliers who created their film. (I have all invoices and documentation to prove that these invoices were submitted by the producers to the DTI rebate scheme.) I managed to survive this bad debt, but many companies I know of did not. It is truly despicable how some people act in our industry. The producer, Anton Ernst, is still making movies here and in the USA, - he just never works with the same crew twice. Regards. Alun Richards

LULLABY does have a certain 'down-beat charm', but Melisa Leo's fine character acting is completely lost in this preposterous script. Not a single plot-point is even remotely believable. The entire plot turns on a single event. A woman gets a call from halfway around the world that her son will be harmed if she doesn't come up with some money. We don't know exactly what the deal is, but we know that it is a time for desperate measures. But, who would (could?) fly from a trashy trailer-park in the USA to Johannesburg, South Africa to pay a couple of thousand dollars in ransom? She spent more than that to get there! And, what follows is a random collection of shootings, armed robberies, public beatings of pregnant women, and excessive cigarette smoking that just get wilder, and wilder. This one is very hard to wrap your mind around.

The Director Darrell Roodt is known for movies like "Father Hood" from 1993 which was a pretty good movie in many ways. When he made "Mandela" the South Africans rased hell when he picked Morgan Freeman (!) as leading role.Anyway, Mr Roodt knows movie-making and even if his budget were to say the least a little sour the result is really worth watching. The plot is nothing new to the world "children makes the wrong moves and end up in jepardy.Motherly heroin has to confront druglords and her sons pregnant girlfriends worrys.Darrell Roodt knows his streets in Johannesburg where the movie scenes are mostly located and the druglords in South Africa is not in any way different then anywhere else in this depraved world.Over all its a hangover movie. A movie that does not stick out but is nothing you feel like you wasted your time to. You can even take a little nap ones in a wile.