[yasr_overall_rating]
Set in 1930s prohibition, a corrupt cop discovers that the popular speakeasy in town has been infiltrated by vampires.
Ice-T has never been a strong actor but he has made good choices in the projects he has been involved in over the years, from “New Jack City,” with Wesley Snipes, Judd Nelson, and Mario Van Peebles, to “Trespass” with Ice Cube, William Sadler, and the late Bill Paxton, to his current stint on TV in “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” the man has most certainly surrounded himself with a bevy of Hollywood heavyweights. Unfortunately, with “Bloodrunners,” ha takes on the starring mantle and the film suffers as a result, but the movie’s downfall is not accredited solely to this one element, it is a multitude of facets that slowly begin to show their teeth (pun intended). I applaud the filmmakers for giving the story a genuinely 1930s-era feel, from costume design to the overall ambiance and atmosphere, everything appears as it should for the period during which it is set but because writer/director Dan Lantz chose to shoot his movie on Digital HD, an odd choice to say the very least, this aspect is what brings the production quality down, a lot.
As an indie filmmaker myself for over 30 years, I started out shooting movies on Super 8mm film and then had no choice but to graduate to video as the late ’80s and early ’90s are when video cameras really took off, giving filmmakers a cheaper option than shooting on film but I would have given anything so that my movies had more of a ‘film’ look to them, rather than a daytime soap opera. And that is one of the major issues with “Bloodrunners,” it has all the ingredients of a great independent feature but looks more like an extended episode of “Days of Our Lives” or “General Hospital.” The other attribute is that for a supposed horror film about vampires, it is simply not scary. The filmmakers utilize slow-motion special effects, similar to that of “The Matrix,” where the camera’s viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed and while this technique was popular back in 1999 when that movie first came out, by today’s standards, it is almost laughable. The scenes throughout are always so well lit, it is almost impossible to induce any sense of fear or dread and kills any chance for a legitimately scary film.
The story takes place in a small mid-Western American town during 1930s prohibition where a local corrupt cop, Jack Malone (Michael McFadden), frequents the local speakeasy. He enjoys taking money from everyone in town, whether their business is legitimate or illegal but after frequenting the illicit establishment for a while, he feels something is off and soon his fears are realized when he discovers that the place is owned and operated by vampires, led by the charismatic Chesterfield (Ice-T). The local brothel is attacked and then several of Jack’s men are killed in an ambush. Out for revenge, the final showdown is led by Jack and a young man named Willie (Chris James Boylan), who used to work at the bar, unaware that those he worked for were vampires, and whose virgin fiancée Anna (Airen DeLaMater) has been kidnapped by Chesterfield and his men.
While the story itself is fine, and the setting and era is intriguing, most of the acting is melodramatic, almost as if the entire cast was made up of theatre actors who had never appeared in a movie before and who are used to exaggerated gestures and exclamations to express emotions, whereas film acting relies on subtle facial ticks, quivers, and tiny lifts of the eyebrow to convey the necessary drama. Although the movie promotes Ice-T as the star, he is not, relegated instead to more of a supporting role. In the end, while “Bloodrunners” has an interesting look and feel, sadly, it’s all it has going for it.
Available on Blu-ray & DVD Tuesday, March 7th
