Ten years after their casino heist, four escaped convicts trace their former partner to a desert town, where he is now a lawman with no memory of his criminal past. Swelter is a great film all the way around. It's very action packed, has some humor, great dialog and awesome acting in it. This film is a modern-day crime thriller and a classic western high plains story all rolled into one. It has an awesome cast including Jean Claude Van Damme, Grant Bowler, Lennie James, Alfred Molina, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Josh Henderson, Daniele Favilli, Freya Tingley, Courtney Hope and other cast, which is very impressive and makes this film SO strong. The film is directed and written by Award Winning Director, Keith Parmer, and the storyline and films' outcome speaks to his impressive talent. Keith is also the Director and Writer of the feature film 'Mob Rules', which was acquired by Lionsgate. This is a film for everyone and should definitely be a 'must-see.' It's totally entertaining! Spotting this movie at my local video store, I thought, "Well, if it has Jean-Claude Van Damme in the cast, there must be at least a decent amount of action in it." Imagine my surprise upon watching the movie when I saw that Van Damme doesn't have a great deal of screen time. Not only that, he doesn't do any martial arts in the movie. In fact, the movie really can't be called an action movie at all - there's very little stuff like gunplay and man to man fights in the finished product.<br/><br/>Still, despite the movie's false advertising, I was willing to accept the movie being more of a drama, as long as it was well done. Unfortunately, "Swelter" is not a well done movie. The biggest problem is that it is incredibly SLOW. For example, it takes more than an HOUR of the total running time before the central protagonist finds himself in trouble. And the movie isn't terribly interesting up to that point or beyond that point. <br/><br/>There are additional problems as well. The movie obviously had a limited budget. While the finished product doesn't look extremely cheap and tacky, there are signs of restraint, like the constant shooting of actors close to the camera (there are few "wide" shots in the movie.) Also, the script is not only slow, there are a number of unanswered questions like how someone with amnesia could be elected sheriff, or how the hero got away with the money with a bullet in his head all those years ago.<br/><br/>While this is far from the worst movie I've ever seen, in the end it will likely be a letdown to anyone who watches it, whether they are expecting an action movie or a hard-boiled drama.
Raylpanc replied
295 weeks ago