Frame of Mind (2009) Reviews

• a pleasant surprise

  coffeeblack2009-01-18

  frame of mind is good. its a b movie but don't let that put you off. the acting has its ups and downs but i would say more ups. when i saw the plot description on IMDb i thought "god no not another kennedy film" well i got a pleasant surprise it had me interested the whole movie through, the idea is good and quiet possible and believable and for a subject matter that has been done time and time again i think it was a brave movie to attempt. i consider myself a harsh critic of bad quality b movies and very rarely comment on this site but i think this movie apart from some of the acting flaws and low budget, had a lot of heart...hope you enjoy.

• Bland and clichéd

  krigler2009-02-23

  Frame of Mind is a by the numbers conspiracy thriller with not one twist you cannot see from miles ahead if you have seen one conspiracy thriller in your life. (If you haven't, do yourself a favour and don't make it your first one.) One episode of '24' has ten times more "surprising" reveals and the level of intelligence is comparable too. This film is insulting to the viewer on many levels. Every character, every plot point is like coming from a box labelled "conspiracy thriller clichés" down to the James Bond-type moustachioed, "sophisticated" villain (it turns out he has grandkids - wow, he is human too!). Writing is so lazy, it's like the whole story was penned for a high school creative writing assignment. The first 45 minutes are basically spent on establishing stuff one already knows going in (for instance from reading the synopsis on the DVD box). Lots of unnecessary verbal exposition is going on and many scenes are there seemingly for the reason to hit home the fact that the hero and his wife love each other. Their cutesy scenes being lovey-dovey are stomach churning. You can hear better honed dialogues on an afternoon Hallmark movie. The most frustratingly bad aspect of the story is the fact that if the conspirators weren't reacting to the threat of disclosure, most probably they would never be in any danger of getting caught, as everyone would just let it die. As soon as they start pulling strings to intimidate people, they confirm all the suspicions. They are incredibly stupid, which begs the question how they can keep deceiving the whole world. Acting is abominable throughout - then again, the actors have nothing to work with. The ridiculous effort to cash in on Chris Noth's Sex and the City fame by putting his face on all artwork is a blatant deceit - he is a secondary character at best. The film is obviously a vanity project for Carl T. Evans, actor, co-writer and producer of this silly film, but he fails in every role. Tech credits are good, lensing is especially great. Editing is fine too, as is sound. It's just a pity these are supporting an inferior product.

• Waste of Time.

  rmax3048232011-01-29

  A young, happily married New Jersey police detective comes into possession of new evidence regarding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It's a photo taken at the grassy knoll in Dallas of a man in an overcoat carrying a rifle. The detective (Evans, who also wrote and directed) finds it interesting enough to contact a local professor (Noth) who has written a book on the subject. Noth is skeptical. So is Evans' wife. So is everybody else Evans contacts, his fellow cops, the FBI, despite the fact that other curious historical events come to light. For instance, the man in the snap shot was a mob member who was murdered the day after the assassination, arriving in Chicago from Dallas. It's about this point that we have a close up of a mysterious man's mouth, speaking into a phone, with a mob boss at the other end, asking questions like, "How much does he know?" The camera, never showing the man's face (it turns out later to be Tony Lo Bianco in a terrible wig), pans across the man's desk, showing a couple of emblems of the mysterious man's importance, including a pair of eyeglasses from which the lenses have obviously been removed. (They might reflect the lights or the camera or the crew.) It all ends with a corrupt and criminal government agency firmly in charge and the innocent Evans and his family about to be extinguished. The plot isn't entirely unreasonable but it's written perfunctorily, as if the writers themselves were more interested in safety than in originality. The dialog has no sparkle. None of the incidents is remarkable. The logical links are weak. Evans is captured by the mob, drugged by one of those drugs that exist only in the movies, beaten half to death, and dumped in the meadowlands. He next appears with a scratch across the bridge of his nose and a not unsightly bruise on his cheek. Clobbered by mob experts and he doesn't even have a black eye. The location shooting only hints at industrial northern New Jersey, land of pizza parlors, leafy suburbs, awesome slums, and diners. ("Broadway Danny Rose" does a better job.) The acting is on a par with the rest of the production. Evans the actor underplays, but he allows the other performers to overact to the point of embarrassment or to use quirks that do not illustrate the character being played but rather the fact that they know they are in a movie. I'll give one example and then quit. The blandly handsome Evans takes his blandly pretty blond wife to a political meeting. (Brief appearance by former Mayor Dinkens of New York, who demonstrates that if he's going to continue a career in show business it ought to be at the political end instead of movies.) Up rushes a high-school flame of Evans'. She hugs him and gushes over him until Evans introduces his wife, who is standing next to him. A nice, cool job by the former flame. But the wife frowns until the flame leaves and then glares up at her husband, as if he's committed some grievous sin. That's what I'm calling "overacting." It spells out emotions that the viewer already is sensitive enough to imagine. The wife's frozen smile would have been enough. But the director can't even leave the EXTRAS alone. In a bar, Evans suspects someone is watching him. He walks up to the man, there is a brief conversation, and Evans shoves the man back against the bar and grabs a wallet out of the man's pocket. He's innocent. Evans apologizes and walks away, while the man makes some sharp remark and exits the scene. In the immediate background, an African-American couple gape open mouthed at the action, their eyes bulging with disbelief. It's the director's responsibility to see that these things don't happen. Nothing much of substance comes from Evans' investigation except that the man of mystery causes all sorts of misfortunes to visit anyone connected to Evans -- but we already knew that would happen. Some movies are so bad they're a little funny. Some are bad and boring. This one is a little embarrassing.

• So sad

  bignaco-12010-08-27

  Aside from a few OK performances, most of this film just kept me thinking, "how did this get made?". With all the great story ideas, amazing actors, directors, writers, etc. in the world, how could something so bland get A) financed and B) legit actors like Chris Noth and Barbara Barrie to act in it? Most of the other actors - I can understand taking part in something like this as I assume they really need a role in whatever they can get. To be fair, the acting is not the real problem though. Even Arija Bareikis, who is normally a decent enough actress, has the depth of an empty manila envelope in this thing. That's partly the script/character to blame, though. The main problems are that the casting is mostly wrong, (David Dinkins...really???), the sound is barely there (sound is essential to creating a mood in a film like this, guys!), the script, (seems like a first draft that no-one edited and it's waaaaay too expository), and the directing (was there a director on set?). Sorry to say that lead actor, Carl Evans, is to blame as he was at the helm - or so we are to assume from his credits. It seems like Eavans came into a load of cash and just blew it on this thing without planning it out correctly. So sad.

• The Smoking Gun?

  sol12182009-03-05

  ***SPOILERS*** Listless and boring movie about evidence uncovered that can finally put an end to the question that's been on the minds of millions of Americans since that fateful day in Dallas back on Novermber 22, 1963: Who Killed President Kennedy? The movie has hot shot NYPD detective David Secca, Cral T. Evens, who's just been transferred to his boyhood home in Carlstadt NJ come across this strip of film form an antique jewelry box he brought for his wife Jenniffer, Arija Bareikns. The film shows the actual shooter making his getaway that day, November 22, 1963, in Dallas! Checking out who the box, as well as film, actually belongs to Det. Secca finds 85 year old Thelma Marshall, Barbara Barrie, at a local nursing home who at first is anything but interested in talking about the whole matter. It' only after Det. Secca tells her that he's a cop she changes her mind and opens up! We get this whole story about how Thelma and her husband were at Deely Plaza in Dallas that fateful afternoon and shot the film of this person, later reviled as Chicago mobster "Lefty" Garbone, at the scene looking suspicious with a rifle sticking under his, even though it was sunny and clear that day, raincoat! Instead of leaving things where they were Det. Secca goes all out putting his as well as his wife's lives in danger to uncover the crime of the century. This leads to the usual suspects who pop up in almost every Kennedy conspiracy movie book and and magazine article: The Mafia CIA with the NSA thrown in for good measures. The movie gets even more confusing-if that's possible-as it goes along with a number of the key witnesses, like Mrs. Marshall, dying under mysterious circumstances. Det. Secca himself is later kidnapped and almost beaten to death in, those who kidnapped him, trying to find out just what he knows about Kenndedy's alleged, on the strip of film, assassin. There's also Kenndey conspiracy writer Prof. Steve Lynde, Chris Noth, whom Det. Secca got in touch with who's anything but interested in helping him but, because of Det. Secca's constant persistence, grudgingly goes along with him. Later in the movie after being threatened, in an official collage letter he received, to be terminated from his job Lynde disappears from the movie altogether. ***SPOILERS*** The so-called surprise ending leaves you feeling down in that the man behind Kenndey's assassination-in the movie- is the guy you suspected from the very beginning! Slow and at times unbearably confusing film "Frame of Mind" never goes anywhere in it's feebly trying to put the finger on the person who shot Kennedy. There are a number of puzzling scenes in the move where the screen goes completely black, for up to as much as ten seconds, giving you the impression that it's finally over with the closing credits about to start rolling. Were put through the ringer with some dozen theories on who just was behind the JFK murder with non of them making any real sense at all!