Tags:
Film: Angels Crest
Year: 2011
Director: Gaby Dellal
Writer: Catherine Trieschmann
Starring: Thomas Dekker, Lynn Collins and Elizabeth McGovern
Review:
This film begins with a little boy coming into his father’s room, the father being played by Thomas Dekker. The boy informs his father that he has wet the bed, and then they notice that it is snowing out. Dekker asks the boy if he wants to go out in it.
They leave the city and go out into wilderness just outside of town. The boy has fallen asleep and Dekker locks the doors as he follows some deer. He hears a gunshot and when he returns to his truck, his son is gone.
He calls the authorities as well as his best friend, who is played by Joseph Morgan. He can’t get a hold of him though. We go to the mother of the child, who is played by Lynn Collins, and we see that Morgan is over there with her. There is a knock at the door and it is another woman, who is played by Mira Sorvino. She is there to tell her what has happened and Morgan bolts to be with Dekker.
The search is sad and Collins lays into Dekker for being a horrible father and that it is his fault. The search goes on all day, but the boy isn’t found. Dekker goes crazy when they are going to call off the search for the night. He continues on. He falls down a snowy slope and is knocked out. He wakes up in the morning and starts to walk. He sees two wolves around something, that turns out to be the frozen body of his son.
We soon after see the district attorney, played by Jeremy Piven. He is taking the case and will prosecute Dekker for what happened. We get a hint that Piven had a child and that child is either missing or dead.
From here we begin to see the dirty secrets of those around town. Dekker goes on a crusade to prove that there was something wrong with the car seat and it wasn’t anything he did. Will he find the proof? What will happen in court?
First off, this movie is sad for what happens in it. With that being said, the biggest problem I had with this film was aside from the names, I had no idea how most people fit together and who they really were. That really annoyed me. I didn’t know if some were related or just friends, the ones I did know really didn’t seem to matter. I also hated that I didn’t know what happened to Piven’s child, not that it had a huge bearing on the story, but I think it would of added a bit to know if the child was missing or dead.
This film is being included in the horror film research, because losing your child and not knowing what happened to them is a scary thing. Much of this movie is the aftermath of what happens, but that is also scary, trying to prove your innocence as well as figuring out why this horrible tragedy happened.
From there, the film isn’t horrible, it actually was interesting. There isn’t a lot that happens, but you see how the town is affected by what has happened and we see them dealing with it. You feel for Dekker who is being prosecuted and feel bad that it is happening, but I understood why. The biggest problem is that none of the characters are really fleshed out, so I didn’t connect with most. Not a bad film to watch though outside of that.
My Rating: 5 out of 10