Review: Ink (Double Edge Films)

Films which impress me are those which leave me with a definite opinion of what I’ve just seen, and Ink is certainly one of those flicks.

(Note: There are as many as 2 Ink movies floating around; sadly, the unit I’m speaking of is not the one about tattoos.)

Visit www.doubleedgefilms.com for more info.

Ink’s plot is based on the age-old conundrum, Do you want to be what you have become, or do you want to be what you once were?

It’s actually sort of a nice little story - marred only by over-the-top costumes, absolutely irritating visual effects, scenes which were sequenced in an apparently random fashion, and slightly distant, foggy performances.

Once you make your way through the weeds and your eyes become accustomed to the overdone visual effects applied during the editing process, what you have is the story of a widower who has lost custody of his daughter, to eventually rejoin her after a seizure puts her into a coma and he is involved in a serious traffic accident and lands in the same hospital.

I’ll admit to having heard or read nothing about Ink before stepping into the theatre and plopping my girthy ass into a seat.

My good pal Clay and I get together a couple times a month for dinner and usually a movie, and it was on one of these “man dates” that I saw Ink. It was his suggestion, and I’m glad I saw it with him; Clay is a southern gentleman with the patience of a plaster saint.

The two best performances were turned in by Quinn Hunchar (Emma the coma daughter) and Shelby Malone (Sara the Storyteller). Once Emma becomes trapped in the “fantastic dream world,” Sara takes her in hand and saves her from various evils.

Of course, it isn’t too dramatically demanding to play the role of a snotty pre-teen girl or a patient woman, so long as your actors are just that. And I’ll leave it at that - there isn’t a lot of story to give away, and going any farther would put me in the ranks of the movie-spoilers.

Without knowing someone’s tastes in film, Ink is hard to recommend. It’s an engaging story, if you can make it past the relentless barrage of visual effects and make sense of the helter-skelter storytelling.

Now, the kicker: If you’re a Denver resident, you might just want to pony up the $$ and take it in. It was filmed here, and you’ll see a lot of familiar Denver landmarks, many of which you might even be able to recognize through the soft-focus, the color-shifts, the posterization and all the other goop heaped onto the raw footage.

~ pagemonkey