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Initiation
USA 2016
produced by Mike Kopera, Jon Shaivitz, Oren Benamor (executive), Adam Ryan Rennie (executive) for Neromada Productions, Lakeview Pictures, Jump Cut Entertainment
directed by Oren Benamor
starring Adam Ryan Rennie, Dan Horton, David Terrell, John Winscher, Hunter Smit, Denell Johnson, Jonathan Cahill, Eric Mindel, Evan Schwartz, Robert Santi, Mike Kopera, Michael Woolston, Eric Larsen, Nich Kauffman, Pitrone Sands, Trey Carter, Cuyle Carvin, Sam Hill jr, Ross Willett, Jim Poole, Malik Ali, Remy Remigio, Sean Bowman, Jeremy Frigo, Ray Stefanelli, Rob Harlan, Kein Milledge
written by Oren Benamor, Dan Benamor, music by Lance Trevino, fight choreography by Federico Berte, Ozzy Ramirez
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Simon (Adam Ryan Rennie) hasn't got the slightest idea when some
strangers drag him out of his car and throw him into the back of a truck -
with four other guys, wh are just as clueless as he is. The only thing he
does understand is the abductors don't want his (or anyone else's) money
as they made no attempts to rob him when they had him at gunpoint. Plus,
the other abductees are literally from all walks of life and seem to have
nothing at all in common, not even common friends or enemies or the like
... and eventually, our quintet lands in a cell in a mansion somewhere in
the middle of nowhere, and finally Marok (Dan Horton), boss of the
abductors, shows up to tell his captives what's going on: They are pretty
much doomed, as he has chosen a quintet of trained fighters to face them
one on one in hand-to-hand combat - to the death. Which is kind of an
initiation rite of his secret society. Now the main problem is, none of
Simon's fellow captives is really trained in combat, and that was Marok's
whole point, to have his fighters actually take lives as part of their
initiation. Things are differently with Simon though, he's a trained
Marine, he knows how to defend himself, how to kill, even without weapons
... and he soon makes a run for it. He's recaptured mind you, but he
wounds one of Marok's fighters (Jonathan Cahill) so badly that he loses in
the battle against one of the captives (Eric Mindel) - and that very
fighter was Marok's brother. So now the whole story has become really
personal ... Now here's an action thriller that's sure to
surprise you with its utterly original story - and that said, sure, it's
far fetched, not denying this for one moment, but the story is told in a
very compact and convincing way without the desire to explain away
everything just for the sake of doing so, so that everything falls
together very nicely and makes sense at least for the duration of the
movie. And add to that a very well-paced storytelling effort and some very
strong and bloody fight scenes, and you quite simply got yourself a pretty
cool movie! Initiation will be released in the USA and
Canada on August 9th, 2016, if interested, do use the appropriate link
below.
US: http://apple.co/28OFsFD
CA: http://apple.co/28QVYbg
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