Milwood

Flat story, acting, everything! Steer clear of this monstrosity.

First of all, let me say that this movie is terrible. Really REALLY bad. The camera work is pedestrian, the acting is scraping the bottom of the barrel. The kid was the only decent actor in the movie. The dialog is truly ridiculous at points, and the details propelling the plot forward don't make any sense. This is further confounded by the way the time line jumps around, making for a movie that lurches along like a wounded animal. The story, at its core, is good, and the movie could have been truly great had it been made by entirely different people. Using haunting as a metaphor for the true horrors that are frequently faced by orphaned children, and ward B as a symbol of the powerlessness of children who are designated wards of the state, could have been crafted into a truly poignant, moving, and ultimately unforgettable work of cinematography, but, unfortunately, this clumsy attempt at that, fails in every way. If Scorsese had made this film, it would have been a masterpiece.

Dear Reader, Bearing in mind the film was released in 2013, a wider or broader context and evaluation is worth considering. I'm not going to dwell on peripherals such as low budget aspects but instead I will draw your attention to historical precedents and actions which are brought up to date during the drama. Those of you who study and value the apparent lessons we were meant to have learnt from the past see immediately that we are trapped in an endless prison of cruelty and violence . This is what the film is about. It requires a level of perception which some individuals do not possess nor are capable of ever seeing. With hindsight, a lot of the plot becomes very obvious, drawing on Dr Mengele, for example, Lord of the Flies, and Clockwork Orange. The reign of terror and intimidation within this orphanage carries on unchecked and un monitored. All the comments on this production either shy away from this or maybe the writers were watching an entirely different film? The message is powerful but the very fact that non-action is as sinful as action brings the evil out into the open. The smuggled camera ruse was brilliant - how else to garner vital evidence? This in itself may be a fictional drama / plot but behind the fiction lies a hideous world where such actions take place and are taking place unchecked. Looked at from another angle and this film is a wake-up call in every regime built on brutality, torture and total disregard for human lives.

WOW! Where do I start? I think to call this a film is even an insult to the movie industry. I have to start by saying that this is one of the worst films you will ever see. The camera work is all over the place, it is jerky in parts and then still when it shouldn't be and what is with the rolling pan shot of the wall when the boy is talking to the cook? They say a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end...this film has none of them, just a garbled mess. And as for the acting (if you can call it that) well that was just the worst. The only redeeming actor was the young lad in what was actually his first acting performance. Although I don't actually know if he was any good or just better than the rest of the cast. Michelle Romano, who played Judy, was actually not terrible albeit a little wooden but she did know the basics of acting at least. Jimmy Scanlon was terrible and after seeing he has since wrote the script to a short film called "Methadone Mile" I suspect he may well have been high on heroin at the time of this movie, although even that wouldn't explain his behaviour. I would like to end with at least one redeeming factor for this film but there were none. I don't think I have ever been so excited to see the credits at the end of a movie. Please do not watch this film, you can actually find it on YouTube as a free movie so what I would recommend is to just flick to any point in the film and just see how bad things are. Truly amazed this was ever distributed.

This is a really poor effort. Within five minutes I could tell it was going to be bad but I stuck with it until the end. OK, I admit that I did skip a couple of chapters towards the end of the DVD and this did help matters. It has the feel of a school project about it and feels very low key. The story is just terrible as this is one of those films that you expect to get better and it doesn't. I picked this up for a £1 and I feel I was robbed.

The boy is OK but certainly not great and the movie just fails completely as a whole. What is the reason that the institution to treat the kids like they do? It's never explained. Avoid.