STRAY BULLETS: critic’s roundup
“A blazingly confident feature debut…
An enjoyably blood-soaked thriller with unexpectedly lyrical interludes…
Strikingly impressive”
–Hollywood Reporter
“Admirably well-crafted … a polished first feature.”
–Variety
“There’s more than a little raw skill on display.”
–New York Times
“Shows promise for its precocious director.”
– The Village Voice
“The film has echoes of Cop Car and Mean Streets,
mixing comic juvenilia with earthy violence…
There’s a confidence and energy to Stray Bullets.”
–Los Angeles Times
“Fessenden displays a sense of parred authority that would be
impressive for older, more experienced artists…
What distinguishes Stray Bullets from so many other low-budget crime films
is Fessenden’s sense of quietness. The filmmaker lingers on images,
informing them with inchoate dread as well as a talismanic sense of wrongness.
… reduces a stock scenario to its primal essence,
informing genre blood sport with pulp transcendentalism.”
–Slant Magazine
“One of the most intense films thus far to be released in 2017…
a methodical character study… utilizes dread and suspense
the way most other crime thrillers would use shootouts and car chases…”
—CinemaSlasher
“the screenplay delivers a few nicely unexpected developments —
including one seriously shattering leftfield jolt —
in a film which foregrounds character and dialog ahead of slam-bang pyrotechnics.
…the director really hits his stride in these latter stages, deploying slow-motion in a mature, sparing fashion, and making particularly effective use of his own haunting, guitar-heavy score”
– Film Journal
“One thing that is particularly impressive is the world that Jack has created
and the collection of fascinating bad guys that inhabit it.
They are people that demand more screen time and easily
could be featured in additional movies in the future.
The acting is exceptional… a devoted character study.”
–Movie Sleuth
“Makes excellent use of its widescreen dimensions…
Jack Fessenden shows he’s already an assured image-maker”
–Chicago Now
“Fessenden’s instincts are right on target…
a pungent, tactile sense of place … de-emphasizes the crime drama
for the sake of character development.”
–J.B Spins
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