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Kat (Angie Johnson) and Alex (Adrian Quihuis) were on their way to
Roswell to make yet another documentary about the place and UFOs, aliens
and stuff. On their way, they want to pick up a hitchhiker ... and
suddenly, bang, they find themselves in the middle of Area 51, with
nothing but their camera, and a mysterious girl, Clem (Devanny Pinn), as
their new companion, who it soon turns out knows quite a bit about
survival in the wild - and that's a good thing though, because Area 51 is
vast, and Kat and Alex have no idea how to get out. Wandering for hours
on end and getting exactly nowhere, our heroes meet another confused
wanderer, Lazar (Wolfgang Meyer), who's actually supposed to be an Area
51-specialist - but the longer they talk to him, the more it becomes
apparent he knows very little. Eventually, a soldier, Kyle (Brandon
Slagle), enters the scene and first threatens our heroes with his rifle,
but after some soundwave from out of nowhere attacks them all equally, he
shows his softer side and promises to take all of them out of here. Now
this is nice, and he's armed, which isn't a bad thing if you're in
possibly hostile territory ... but the problem is, he doesn't know the way
out either, and with Kyle, our heroes are running into one dangerous
situation after another, situations they might have avoided without him,
and he seems to not be telling them all he knows, either. Then Kat
disappears, and all that's left of her is a blood-splattered cliff. Lazar
eventually leaves the group, and according to Kyle, he walks into his
certain death. Then Kyle steps onto a landmine, and he urges Alex and Clem
to free before the mine goes off, even gives them his gun since for him
there is no hope ... Without exactly knowing where, Alex and Clem run
for their lives, but then Alex realizes there's something not quite right
... Click
here to open the Spoiler Pop-up! At
first glance, this looks like just another fake found footage film,
which have been flooding the market in the last decade or so, and thus it
might spark little interest. At second glance though, this is a movie
that offers something even for people who have grown wary of the hectic
handheld cam POV subgenre - basically because the found footage approach
makes sense for a change: This is not about some kids getting into danger
making a documentary and then for some reason holding onto their cameras
more than onto their lives, the fact that these guys are being filmed is
actually part of the premise which is some gouvernment conspiracy or other
(the film remains enjoyably vague on the backstory to not distract from
the actual story and the suspense). Apart from that, the handheld
camerawork is fortunately very unhectic and not as annoyingly disorienting
as we have grown used to, instead resembles real camerawork, and through
clever editing, traditional creation of suspense and the like, Area 51:
Confidential also seems much more like a real movie than most found
footage films out there. To put it shortly: Pretty good, actually.
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