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15 Till Midnight
USA 2010
produced by Wolfgang Meyer, Brandon Slagle, Samantha Starr (executive) for Wolfpak Industry Productions, Rotten Apple Productions, Zeroinside Films
directed by Wolfgang Meyer
starring Brandon Slagle, Dee Martin, Devanny Pinn, Andrew Roth, Andrea Chen, Antonio San Miguel, Olivia Baseman, Thomas Daniel, Saswata Bandy, Francis Cooper, Wolfgang Meyer, Adam Vargas, Brian Patrick, Lauren Francesca, Michael Pearce, Mala Wright, Manoush, Keith Vrotney, Chris Vazquez, Stacy Pippi Hammon, Jimmy Creamer, John Paul Grochowski, Chiara Fariello
written by Brandon Slagle, music by Isaias Garcia, music supervisor: ZminusX (= Brandon Slagle)
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Lukas (Brandon Slagle) and Sera (Andrea Chen) have gtheir second
wedding anniversary, and it couldn't have been a happier and more romantic
day. The next day though, Sera is gone. No, not just gone, she has taken
everything she owns with her, has erased all traces she has ever been in
the apartment or in Lukass's life even, has vanished into thin air without
any kind of good-bye just like that. To cheer his colleague up a bit,
Damon (Dee Martin) takes Lukas to a bar where the two of them get royally
drunk. At that bar, Lukas picks up Nara (Devanny Pinn), takes her home
with him, and the two end up having sex. The next morning, Nara is not
only still there (no big surprise here) but she has apparently moved all
her stuff in over night, and has sprinkled the apartment with memorabilia
of a past life of her and Lukas together, a past life that never was. When
Lukas wants to throw her out, she claims she has been his wife for the
past two years, and when he insists on her leaving, she has a mental
breakdown - that eventually leads to her suicide ... During the day,
Lukas finds that the world as he knows it is transforming, very subtly
though, but transforming, still. It seems like walking round streetcorners
can lead to whole different parts of the city, things that just have been
here are not there anymore or are there though they are not supposed to,
and even memories these days seem to be something vague and at times
untrue. The more Lukas investigates what's going on, the more he comes to
the conclusion that there might be parallel worlds he is passing through -
but he has too little time to try to make sense about what he has found
out, because he suddenly finds himself on the run from some ... guys he
doesn't even know or is able to place. Eventually, Lukas is captured,
tied to an operating table and made ready for some kind of weird surgery ...
Click
here to open the Spoiler Pop-up!
An interesting piece of science
fiction cinema that refuses to rely on action and special effects, instead
presents its audience with an intelligent, labyrinthine story that
questions reality as we know it. However, this does not make 15 Till
Midnight a brainheavy message movie or anything, instead a solid
script and a well-paced and subtle directorial effort see to it that the
film comes across as entertaining genre fare that (for a change) does not
insult its audience's intelligence. That lead Brandon Slagle really finds
into his (self-written) character does not hurt one bit either, nor does a
competent supporting cast. Recommended, actually!
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