The Power of Few

2013 "We are all watching."
5.1| 1h36m| R| en| More Info
Released: 15 February 2013 Released
Producted By: Steelyard Pictures
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Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Spies, cops and armed children cross paths on a day of danger, mystery and possible transformation. Five unusual characters are unknowingly connected to an extraordinary smuggling operation, as religious conspiracy collides with urban crime.

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Reviews

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
pyrocitor What's really going on in this time-twisting, pseudo-philosophical urban crime parable that wants to be 'Tarantino does Run, Lola, Run' so badly it hurts? Your guess is as good as mine. Essentially, the Vantage Point-style (I won't invite the comparison to the infinitely superior Rashômon) overlapping story lines all revolve around the theft of the Shroud of Turin (Jesus' burial cloth) from the Vatican. The FBI(?) agents pursuing it (Christian Slater & Nicky Whelan) stumble across a bundle of eccentric characters, including the manic pixie dream girl bike messenger obliviously transporting it (Q'orianka Kilcher), a vengeful thug out for blood (Anthony Anderson), a pair of philosophical homeless men (Christopher Walken and In Bruges' Jordan Prentice), and a teen thieving his brother's baby food (Devon Gearhart)... all of whose lives are subtly, positively altered by the presence of Few (Tione Johnson), who comes with her own murky theological connotations. Muscling through the ensuing brain hurt to try to piece together the film isn't as much Few as 'Phew!' It sounds interesting enough on paper, and Marucci's confidently stylized filmmaking lends some slick intersections of soundtrack and cinematography (the highlight is Walken fantasizing a couple of botched robberies, shot like a TV crime bulletin), as well as alarmingly non-sequitur bursts of startling violence. The film's script, however, is madder than a sack full of ferrets, and more concerned with sounding hip at all costs (it doesn't) than answering any of the film's logistical questions (it still doesn't), let alone much sense of theme or cohesion. That said, it's not an outright unpleasant watch, and Marucci gets good use out of his grimy New Orleans locations, with some flashy aerial establishing shots of the city modeled after Spike Lee's bombastic Do The Right Thing… again, just not as good.The ensemble cast are all sturdy work but largely unremarkable. Slater's police procedural vignette is the most disappointing, too mired in unclear context and snarling overacting to generate much excitement. The noteworthy exceptions are the adorably flighty Kilcher and magnetically calm Johnson, both reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai characters. Then there's the incomparable Walken, garbed like a homeless Silent Bob, and sporting a "Clone Jesus" t-shirt. He works wonders with his hepcat dialogue, infusing his oddball conspiracy theorist with more riveting conviction and subtle pathos than the material warrants.At its best moments, The Power of Few is lively, pleasantly beguiling, and even threatens to raise some interesting questions about fate, spirituality, and so on. Still, Marucci's monolithic dialogue and overcomplicated, under-explained plot are so alienating that it's nigh impossible to connect with any of the characters or scenarios for more than fleeting moments. You certainly can't fault Marucci for taking chances, but with a film that feels overlong at only 96 minutes, leaving the viewer still scrabbling for a point at its conclusion, the film's real power is how little it manages to accomplish with so much going on.-5.5/10
drjgardner This is a twist on the multiple interlocking stories that you've seen many, many times before, but this time it IS different. The first hour is pretty traditional, with only the vaguest hint of what is to come. I stayed with it because of the quality of the actors – Christopher Walken, Christian Slater, Anthony Anderson, Navid Negahban (Abu Nazir on "Homeland"), Moon Bloodgood (Anne on "Falling Skies"), Jordan Prentice ("In Bruges"), Derek Richardson (Nolan in "Anger Management"), etc. Normally you can't get such a good ensemble with an ordinary fare.Writer-Director-Producer Leone Marucci uses some good visual techniques although he is a little heavy handed on the musical score, and sometimes just too shocking in some of the physical scenes. At times it has a film school look, but the marvelous detailing in the interlocking elements, slowly and surely revealed as the film goes along, compensates for the lesser moments.This is a film you may find disappointing at first, but stay with it right up until the end. It will cause no more pain.
OJT The power of few is such a strange bird of a film, and as a very experienced movie watcher, I from the start felt this was different. There's so many of the usual and ordinary ways of making a film, that one often tend to get bored, or rather, is less impressed about. We've seen it all before, you could say.However, this is a fresh breeze of a film. The film is full of little tricks and strange ways of doing things. Fresh takes, you could say, being in the wrong place. The idea of this film is things happening seen from different persons view or angles, happening just after 2 p.m. one hot afternoon in a gritty, crime ridden part if New Orleans. The film soon reveals this, but still it keeps the tension, though it starts over and over with the same time frame seen again from a different viewpoint.It is easy to hate some of this as well, because things which happens here is the quite opposite of what you want. I can't tell more without revealing major story telling points, so I will not.There's a bunch if great actors here, and the two biggest stars, Christopher Walken and Christian Slater are not doing the best job here. The best acting is done by one of the minor roles and the third segment of this film is letting the rest of the film down, like Devon Gearhart and Tione Johnson. The instruction of the actors are not anything compared to the start. It looks like the actors was acting in another type of film, less serious than what the others are doing. Such a pity, but I think that this is due to different actors being able to be filming at different times, so that the feeling the actors have is different from the whole. The film also take a funnier twist than it should, according to the start. However, if you see through this, which I chose to do, due to the great start, the film is still good.What I really love here is the cutting and editing. It's different and very interesting. The storytelling is superb. It reminds me of "Lola rennt" ("Run Lola run") by Tom Tykwer, which I loved when I saw it in the cinema back In 1998. Or you could see resemblance with great films like "Sliding doors" or "Mr. Nobody". The camera movements and the music is stylish. Many will be expecting more from the end, but I liked it.I would recommend this to film lovers which wants something quite different from the ordinary. Storytelling, takes, techniques and originality makes this a gem! A cult movie, no doubt!
Ed-Shullivan Why would a talented and seasoned actor such as the 70 year old Christopher Walken agree to star in a movie directed and written by someone like Leone Marucci who has not had any proved body of work and/or track record to speak of? Why would a first rate action star such as Christian Slater also be convinced to join the cast? I can only surmise that they read the script and shared a common vision that with the writer/director Leone Marucci they could somehow recreate the powerful cinema experience of 2004's Crash.Unfortunately this movie was a mad scramble of vignettes that I found to be boring and lacking any significant artistic value. From my own point of view, it would appear that the movie was originally filmed in the proper sequence of events, then spliced in to 3-5 minute intervals, thrown in to a covered box, shaken thoroughly, then re-spliced, in an effort to add some artistic value(?) and then additional alternating scenes of the "what if the power of few intervened" were filmed, and also thrown in to the covered box, re-spliced in to the film, and the revealing final scenes were then completed to somehow magically complete the writer/directors tapestry (Leone Marucci would probably say tapestry, and I would say travesty).I am a big fan of Christopher Walken's work and a seasonal fan of Christian Slater. Both were disappointing in the roles they were asked to play, and I am sure that even they would agree that the final result was not what they were expecting.Don't waste your time with this director's attempt to copy the 2006 Best Picture Oscar success of the 2004 movie Crash (starring Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Thandie Newton 'et al), instead pick up the movie Crash, and even if you have already seen it, it is a much better watch a second time around, than "The Power Of Few" was for me to watch the first time (and last time) I watched it.

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