TRASH IN MY EYE Reviews: VOD

Showing posts with label VOD. Show all posts

Monday, February 3, 2025

Review: Christian Film, "PARALLEL - THE TRIAD," Keeps it Real

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 8 of 2025 (No. 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Parallel – The Triad (2024)

Running time: 86 minutes (1 hour, 26 minutes)

MPA – no rated

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Jason Aleman

PRODUCER: Jason Aleman

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mike Wilson

EDITOR: Jason Aleman

COMPOSER: Robin Hannibal

FAITH/SCI-FI/DRAMA

Starring: Chad Garrett, Lizzie Camp, Terry Weaver, Marley Aleman, Troy Garza, Sharen Andrea White, Liam Robert Noack, Josh Thigpen, Marcus Luttrell, V.R. Norbert Maduzia, Michael T. Adams, Kieth Noack, and Jason Aleman

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:

Parallel – The Triad is a faith-based film with some intriguing science fiction ideas about the war between good and evil

The film is far from perfect and is clunky at times, but its message and motivations seem genuine.

Parallel – The Triad is 2024 Christian science fiction film and faith-based drama from director Jason Aleman. The film follows a mechanic who joins three souls sent to Earth by God to fulfill His plan.

Parallel – The Triad introduces Cyrus Dooley (Chad Garrett), a hot-rod mechanic and automobile restoration expert. Cyrus has been grieving the loss of his father nearly a year earlier in an accident for which he blames himself. So lost in his grief is Cyrus that he does not notice that one of his employees, T.J. (Lizzie Camp), has fallen under the spell of Abimelech (Terry Weaver), a scheming businessman who becomes a servant of “the evil spirits that sway humans.”

God sends three souls: Briella (Marley Aleman), Urie (Troy Garza), and Sarie (Sharen Andrea White) to Earth from “the Parallel” on a mission to fulfill His plans. That means that they have to help Cyrus after more tragedy befalls him and he continues to lose his way in life. Can “The Triad” help Cyrus understand that he must “trust God's plan?”

I certainly do not belong to any of the target audiences for Parallel – The Triad, but I discovered the film's existence via social media. Although I have reviewed a few films that depict Jesus Christ, the only faith-based, Christian drama, or evangelical film that I have reviewed to date is 2014's Son of God, a really good movie which hails from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett's empire of Christian schmaltz, Lightworkers Media.

Something about Parallel – The Triad piqued my interest. Structurally, in terms of narrative and character, Parallel – The Triad has some major problems. I don't know if the dialogue is really as bad as it seems or if it is good and cast is simply not professional. The special effects are at least three decades behind current standards. The film's robotic villains, the “demon droids,” look like they were created for the original Mortal Kombat (1995) film.

However, Parallel – The Triad, for all its faults, seems genuine in what it has to say. This movie does not seem like corporate movie product meant to sell merchandise and ancillary products, as much as it sells tickets. Parallel – The Triad wants to spread the good news about God's plan and about trusting God's plan. The film does not shy away from portraying the high costs of the wages of sin and about how hard it is to get away from the “evil one” the more a person has invested in evil. I do find that the film's emphasis on technology, media, and “pharmacology” as spreaders of negative energy to be cringe-inducing, although there may be some truth to that notion.

I like “Cyrus Dooley” as the lead character; actor Chad Garrett really sells Cyrus' grief and guilt. Also, Lizzie Camp gives a tight performance as T.J., allowing her to have a nice character arc. These two characters steady the occasional rickety nature of the film's structure.

My criticisms aside, I found myself fascinated by Parallel – The Triad, and I think fans of faith-based films will find this movie's character drama to be every bit as intriguing as its sci-fi “Holy War” side. I'd like to see a sequel to Parallel – The Triad, hopefully one with a bigger VFX budget. If this concept had the CGI budget of even a small scale Hollywood film, it would rock the heavens... or the Parallel.

B-

5 of 10

★★½ out of 4 stars

Monday, February 3, 2025

"Parallel - The Triad" is available for rent or purchase at Amazon Prime Video. And yes, this blog does participate in Amazon's "affiliate advertising program," so I will get paid a small fee if you click on this link and actually rent it or purchase something from Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/@ParallelFilmsStudio

https://bsky.app/profile/parallel-films.bsky.social

https://www.facebook.com/parallel.films.studio

https://x.com/ParallelTriad

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Thursday, February 15, 2024

Review: "SURROUNDED" Takes a Different Path to the Wild West

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 9 of 2024 (No. 1953) by Leroy Douresseaux

Surrounded (2023)

Running time: 101 minutes (1 hour, 41 minutes)

MPA – R for violence and language

DIRECTOR: Anthony Mandler

WRITERS: Anthony Pagana and Justin Thomas & Andrew Pagana

PRODUCERS: Jason Michael Berman, Aaron L. Gilbert, Derek Iger, Anthony Mandler, Ade O'Adesina, and Letitia Wright

CINEMATOGRAPHER: Max Goldman (D.o.P.)

EDITOR: Ron Patane

COMPOSER: Robin Hannibal

WESTERN/DRAMA

Starring: Letitia Wright, Jamie Bell, Jeffrey Donovan, Michael K. Williams, Kevin Wiggins, Brett Gelman, Luce Rains, Andrew Pagana, Augusta-Allen Jones, Herman Johansen, Keith Jardine, C.M Petrey, Austin Rising, and Tony Sedillo

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SUMMARY OF THE REVIEW:

--Letitia Wright can make audiences put aside her most famous role – that of Shuri in Marvel's “Black Panther” films – and accept her as a 19th soldier who can defend herself with a gun and take on any man trying to get the best of her.

--Although it lacks the epic scope of the great American Western films, Surrounded is riveting and intense.

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Surrounded is a 2023 Western drama film directed by Anthony Mandler and starring Letitia Wright, who is also one of the film's producers. After debuting at the Sun Valley Film Festival in April 2023, MGM released the film digitally (VOD) on June 20, 2023. Surrounded focuses on a former former Buffalo Soldier who travels west to lay claim on a gold mine, only to end up playing guard to a dangerous, captured outlaw.

Surrounded opens in the year 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War. Mo Washington (Letitia Wright) is a former Buffalo Soldier. [This was the nickname given to U. S. Army regiments that were primarily comprised of African-Americans and were formed during the 19th century to serve on the American frontier.] Mo arrives in Brushwood Gulch, New Mexico, the last stop on the edge of the Wild West.

Mo has a secret. He is actually a she. Mo is a former slave, who after becoming a freedwoman, disguised herself and became a soldier. After leaving the army, she travels west to take possession of a gold claim in the Territory of Colorado. Mo books passage on a stagecoach, but some time after departure, the coach is attacked by a group of “road agents” (marauders) led by the infamous Thomas “Tommy” Walsh (Jamie Bell).

After a chaotic fight, Mo is left to guard the captured Tommy Walsh, who tries to convince her to set him free. He has buried somewhere in the area the $120,000 that he and his gang stole during a recent bank robbery. So many sinister figures want him – from members of his gang to bounty hunters and assorted bandits. Now, Mo finds herself surrounded, and she must survive everyone who is coming for Walsh. Most of all, she must survive Tommy's wily ways.

Surrounded is a surprisingly intense Western drama made all the more intense that the lead character is a Black woman pretending to be a Black man in a world that hates both. Add racism and also racial elements and Surrounded is... surrounded by intensity. This is an unusual scenario for an American Western film, but Cathay Williams was a real-life African-American woman who disguised herself as a man and served out west in the U.S. Army from 1866-68 during the Indian Wars.

Like the film's tone, Letitia Wright is intense – quietly so – as the no-nonsense and devout Mo Washington. Wright makes everything in her performance seem genuine and convincing, from the way Mo dresses to her ability to wield large pistols. Wright is best known for playing the role of Shuri, the Wakandan princess in Marvel Studios' Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). In Surrounded, however, Wright made me forget Shuri and accept her as 19th century Black woman who survives slavery, the tragic deaths of her parents, and her time as a Buffalo Soldier.

Surrounded is filled with good performances. Fellow British actor, Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot), has excellent screen chemistry with Wright, and Bell is quiet good as a Western character, bringing complexity and eccentricity to the standard murderous Western outlaw and bank robber. Surrounded is also the final film appearance of the Emmy Award-nominated actor, Michael K. Williams, who died in 2021. Here, he makes the most of his small role as Will Clay, so much so that I wish that he had a bigger role in the film.

Surrounded is a surprisingly riveting film. Early on, it seems as if it doesn't really have the energy to rise above being a mere historical drama and become a true Western film. It does and eventually hits its stride, although I wish the film had focused on some of the interesting characters outside the Mo Washington-Tommy Walsh dynamic. Surrounded is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Vudu.

B+

7 of 10

★★★½ out of 4 stars

Thursday, February 15, 2024

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