Slam Bang

C-

Directed by Mark Lebenon

Fantasia prides itself on showcasing a number of DIY feature efforts every year, the quality of which often varies wildly. South African director Mark Lebenon's low budget action effort "Slam Bang" is, despite the best intentions of Lebenon and his crew, an unofrtunate miss, a film that suffers from a messy script and plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon.

IT guy George sees his boring, ordered life take an unexpected turn when he is ordered to steal some data by a mysterious criminal named "The Chinaman." Should George fail to do this, The Chinaman has promised to off George's girlfriend. Hoping to do the deed as quickly and effortlessly as possible, George qickly sees his plans go off the rails, forcing him to go on the lam as hired assassins and The Chinaman's own henchmen try to locate George and retrieve the date.

Truth be told, the DIY aspect of "Slam Bang" was rather enjoyable. Knowing that the director was working with a low budget (or even no budget) and that most of the key actors were likely his buddies or casual acquaintances made me appreciate the whole thing more than I normally would have simply because the film was obviously a labor borne elusively of love. That said, "Slam Bang" is not a very good film, even by DIY standards. The acting is bad, even for amateurs, and the script is laughable. The action scenes lack credibility and the film's short length leave its character's underdeveloped and give the film an almost anecdotal flavor. In all fairness, constructing a believable, adequately sleek looking action film on a negligeable budget is almost impossible.Sure, it's been done before (El Mariachi, for instance) but the fact of the matter is that action flicks take a budget and "Slam Bang" doesn't have one. I also think that if "Slam Bang" had been a bit more tongue in cheek and not so dead serious about its intentions it may have had some further success. As it stands now, it's a film that tries to hard and ends up overreaching its limited budget, essentially swinging for the fences with a whiffle bat.