Pluskylang Great Film overall

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

tigerpuppies The premise of the movie was interesting; the actual execution was terrible. The actors were quite good, but the dialogue was unrealistic and made the characters appear stiff.SPOILERS:The time travel premise was interesting and I kept waiting for it to happen or be disproved. But, it just fizzled. I couldn't figure out if the audience was meant to guess that it happened at the end or not or if the writer/directer just didn't know how to execute.While the overall theme seemed to be hopeful, even spiritual, especially when characters crossing each others paths led to good things, the ending was a punch to the gut. I could forgive the slowness, the bad dialogue, deus ex machina, but not the ending. A character who is saved two people's lives, is about to reunited with his long lost love, dies!! No, time traveling (which talked about the entire movie) for him to go back and get his true love, become a doctor and live a happy life. He dies from a bee sting in the dessert after he uses his epi-pen to save another man's life.Very disappointed with the ending. I felt cheated.

graceandpeace-paul As an avid movie fan, not a cinema critic, just a fan of good movies... I enjoyed this movie immensely. There are times when I want to see a movie based on certain criteria, however this was not one of them. There are times I become so frustrated with reviewers who pick apart a movie to death... get a life some of you. I just wanted to sit back and enjoy a decent movie. Not over-think it to death with how the cinematographer was too into hi/her scenes, how bad/good the acting was... do you think you could do a better job? Get some popcorn curl up alone or with someone you love, pop this movie in and escape for a while... suspend belief... this ain't no documentary... enjoy the soundtrack (awesome in my opinion), and have a good time. Remember this is just a review from a former Bronx NYC boy. Enjoy it.

Outbound_MO I pretty much agree with everything Yarso86 said, with the exception that I was bored by the film when it wasn't even halfway done.By far the scenes between the mother and daughter are the worst. The actress who plays the mom is completely over the top, with utterly absurd reactions to everything the daughter says, and the lousy script doesn't help either. Their story is also the worst, with a completely absurd and pointless plot device that makes absolutely no sense at all. It reminds me of something akin to a Goosebumps or some Nickelodeon TV episode.Also, there's some voice over work in the beginning of the movie that makes me think that the post-production was done in Portugal and they couldn't find an American English native speaker so they got a Portuguese who does a fake American accent that just deteriorates as he reads his lines, which get progressively worst, using expressions that no American would use.To top it all off, the best actor in the whole film, Joaquim de Almeida, an actual international actor with serious work under his belt with some of Hollywood's biggest stars, only gets half a dozen lines of dialogue in the whole thing, mostly talking to himself, although in retrospect that makes sense because he would pretty much shame any of the other actors in this film who tried to be in the same scene as him.Image wise,like Yarso said, some of the footage has that very clean HD look, which becomes very camcorder like in some scenes, seriously clashing with the beautiful (and often overused) slow-motion shots.I'm giving it a really low rating because I honestly believe that what's already on here is over-inflated out of a misplaced sense of national pride.Again, like Yarso said, the director does actually show some promise, but he really needs to back away from script writing.

Larissima Backlight is a brilliant script: A great story, with nicely shaped characters whom, one way or another, got me thinking "Sometimes, life is so full of coincidences that it's almost unreal.". Obviously, it doesn't matter how strong the script is, if it's transformation to the big screen is sloppy, but with Backlight, everything works in perfection. The multi layered story has been excellently transferred to the screen and the final product is like a perfectly tuned symphony: No note is false, and as the band plays, you get swept away by their music. One of the reasons for this, is a great cast, of whom I think, no one deserves more credit than others... and then again: I really loved Joaquim De Almeida, but above all the memorable character of Lucy, played by the young actress Skyler Day. She will always shine brightly in my mind. A definitely must see movie!