Pretty Good

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

First off, I enjoyed this movie.Disclaimer * - Too many posts are written "anonymously" when in actuality the author was involved with the film, or had personal experiences with individuals involved with the film. With this in mind, I would like to disclose that I personally know an individual involved in the making of this film.It should be known that Denise Downs, the actress playing Mercedes, was placed in a situation where she ethically could no longer work on this project, despite attempts to resolve any issues. Subsequently, her voice was replaced by another individual many times throughout the film. Any discrepancies should be noted.Additionally, in the scene where Mercedes was performing her burlesque routine, the song used for the filming and choreography was replaced after her departure from this project. The song used in the actual film therefore does not match her dance routine.

I saw this film's international premiere at the 6th UCFF Film Festival in Dublin, Ireland yesterday and was pleasantly surprised.I do however believe that the production company that the director Scott Leisk partnered with in order to get the film made and distributed (Mutt Productions), have short changed the material by heavily pushing the action movie angle for nakedly commercial reasons.The marketing artwork and the new title (the original title was the much better, 'Mahogany Sunrise') betray what this movie ultimately is at it's core, and that is a character driven, romantic neo-noir adventure.Those expecting a straight forward action shoot-em up would no doubt be disappointed. This is NOT that movie. Although it utilizes a store of different genre tropes, it at least uses them in interesting ways.The director said at the Q & A that the total budget including cash and favors amounted to about $65,000.00. Knowing what it takes to make a movie myself, I thought that they managed to get maximum bang for their buck - It is all on screen! I cannot accept some of the above comments about the casting. Really? The quality of the performers are one of the movie's strongest suits and the characters are believable across the board. Yes we may have seen these type of characters before, but the key thing about noir's & neo-noirs is that the characters are all meant to be desperately flawed in some way, or if you are being unkind you would say that they are 'stupid, greedy and endlessly needy' people doing dumb things and making a thousand wrong decisions which look absurd to the audience. What audiences need to try and understand is that it is an essential element of all good noirs/neo-noirs that the characters suffer from these critical lacks of self-awareness because if they didn't go bumbling repeatedly into these kind of situations, then they just wouldn't be 'noir' enough! - and make no mistake, 'Mahogany Sunrise' is a highly accomplished low budget noir.Apparently, the incoherence that was refereed to in one of the previous reviews was partially down to the removal of a key scene, which the producers removed for 'commercial' reasons. I have since watched the scene in question on vimeo and I hope that Scott manages to get his "Director's Cut' out there. It deserves to be seen as it was initially intended, but even in this compromised state, the film is highly entertaining with no slack. However, I personally wished that it was longer, because in this particular case, it needed to be.

I am not sure if this movie is a serious attempt to make movie. The directing is actually pretty good at times, so is the music which creates a professional feeling to it. However, that is also it makes feel as if this movie is just something to show off the directors skills, because the script, and acting, and storyline is just so awful most of the time. The writer ( which is also the director ) makes no effort to make up a plausible case for why some figures would take that particular action. It begins by a guy loosing a bag of money, then looses it and gets it back about five more times, sometimes so stupidly, and every time the other guys finds them. And then they stupidly looses the money without someone even looking for them.There are so many stupid and incositent things about this movie. I think the directory should stick to directing, albeit some scenes, like the action scenes were pretty pretty bad. The actors are also pretty bad except for the latino dude. He was the only one that could actually act. All in all this movie get a 1. The director might get a 4-5 but the movie drags him down a lot.

I enjoyed this film. It was quite funny. I'm not sure it was supposed to be as funny as it is, but it ended up that way. I think Chato could use some range time with the way he shoots during the big gun battle in the parking lot. I was rolling on the floor. Morrison ended up right where he needed to end up just like a little baby. My only real complaint was that a lot of the lighting was just too dark. You couldn't see the actors acting. Their faces are their paint brushes and when you can't see them you loose something. I'd rent it again just for the Menudo scene. Larry Sands was a real crack-up. Wesley Blake seemed very natural in his part as did Jesse Campos. Denise Downs was a bit whiny for my tastes and she could have used some dancing lessons. This was a lot of fun to watch for an indie film since they tend to mostly be about some issue these days.