The Demolisher (2015) Reviews

• Terrible!

  togetherinthefuture2015-10-14

  Just the thought that they compared the director to John Carpenter, Michael Mann and Walter Hill is almost criminal. The dialogue and slow motion scenes are laughable at best. I would not recommend this film at all!!!! The people who gave this movie great reviews shod have their heads examined. I am one of the biggest supporters of indie film and this movie does nothing but make me mad. I wish I could "Demolish" the film negative so nobody has to sit through the longest 85 minutes of my life. I can't believe how many times they used slow motion for all their fighting scenes!!! The shots of Downtown Toronto were just so amateurish and I have never questioned so many scenes in a movie like "Why is he doing this?" or "Why the hell did that happen?". The funniest part is the acting in this movie and I'm pretty sure this was never intended to be comedic in any way. You know a movie is headed for trouble when the audience openly laughs at a physically challenged character crawling to their loved one who just tried to kill an innocent woman...

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• One of the most amateur films ever shown at VIFF

  johnston-cole2015-10-15

  I wanted to like this. In fact, I wanted to love this. An homage to John Carpenter and the action revenge films of the 1970s and 80s? Sign me up! Unfortunately, director Gabriel Carrer is not nearly skilled enough to helm this kind of project. In fact, this is the most amateur film I've ever seen screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival. I understand what Carrer was going for with this take on the vigilante justice gone too far, and the idea had potential. But every scene was so heavy- handed, there's not a single moment where a character acts in a natural manner. Every line of dialogue is horrendously written, it's hard to know if the actors are terrible, or its just the script. I'd like to give the actors the benefit of the doubt. But despite the amateur script and direction, I was OK with The Demolisher being a "too ambitious for its own good" disaster. That would have been fine. But then came the 40 minute chase scene, which had our heroine running frantically through the streets of downtown Toronto at night. Instead of going directly to the police or even, say, a car with people in it, the girl runs past police cars, past groups of people, and past open businesses. She opts for the safer route, an abandoned shopping mall, the upper level no less, then an underground parking lot, a gang of murderous thugs who can "smell that she's a virgin", and finally a desolate rooftop. This was the most unintentionally hilarious chase scene I've ever witnessed. Audience members were cackling with every insane decision she made. And it would have made for great comedy were it not so deadly serious about its intentions as a serious film. And that's really the fatal flaw with The Demolisher. It should be a grindhouse exploitation classic, tongue-in-cheek and self aware, something akin to Hobo With A Shotgun. Instead, the director tries to give us realism and gritty raw emotion, which he proves hilariously inept at doing. Clocking in at just under 85 minutes, this somehow manages to be the longest and most aggravating excuse for a movie I've seen all year. 1/10

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• Not a success

  jim9tan2015-10-05

  Done as a B-movie. Presented as a series of vignettes, sometimes with art movie overtones. Extremely violent towards the end. The direction of the film felt a little amateurish. Did not splice the two story lines in a convincing way. The violence was over the top. The dialogue was disappointing. That said, the cinematography was good. A policewoman is crippled after she intervenes in a ritual sacrifice. Her husband is deeply disturbed by her anguish and frequent nightmares. He dresses up in riot police armour, stalks and brutally beats the gang members. In the end, he is so traumatized by the violence that he goes berserk. Does not end well. It was unfortunate that the editor put in an up-beat ending. Quite unnecessary. Cannot recommend the film.

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• How much of the budget went to get all those raving reviews for the poster?

  Seth_Rogue_One2016-03-22

  The poster is riddled with comments from supposedly professional reviewers raving about how amazing this movie was. But don't be fooled by them cause they clearly were under the influence (of money most likely) when they wrote those. Don't get me wrong, there is some talent behind the cinematography of the movie, for such a low budget movie it looks pretty good. But the script is horrendous, it tries so hard to be artsie, abstract and distant (probably to hide the fact that the plot doesn't make any sense) that it's borderline impossible to follow at times. And no the movie is not too complex for me or anything it has nothing to do with that, the characters and script simply does not follow any kind of logic. There's not really all that much more to say really.

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• A lot of nothing

  ivarthurvi2016-02-18

  The camera work is impressive in some areas, capturing unique perspectives, but that's not the problem with this film. The problems, actually, are what follows. Where did all these reviews plastered on the poster come from? Are you kidding me? Who needs dialogue when you have long (to the point of awkward) actors and actresses staring off into nothing? We didn't need a plot, because: REASONS Nothing really made sense in this film, outside the fact that the lead antagonist was clearly insane. The "violence" and "brutality" of this movie was very boring and simple. No real structure to the action, so it's selling itself as a boring trip. If you want to see what a slow burning thriller should be like, watch A History of Violence. This film seems to attempt that kind of portrayal of a vigilante, but really, it's a failure of a horror film, shot in a way to show the perspectives of both cat and mouse, and boy are they both dull. I gave it a 2 for the camera work being impressive, like I said, but I'd rather regurgitate a full grown cat than watch this again.

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