The Low End

Over the course of forty-eight hours during a music festival, a recovering drug addict attempts to rekindle his relationship; but with little money, he is forced to engage in a dangerous deal with a former lover-turned-drug-pusher to fund the weekend.

I quite liked the concept behind this very low budget affair. It intertwines two timelines but interestingly one begins at the start going forwards, the other at the end working retrospectively before the film itself finishes somewhere at the confluence. Now that obviously removes some of the jeopardy from the plot, but I though it could have been an effort worth making. Sadly, though, the innovation stopped at the theory stage and the actual execution is pretty poor. “Cal” (Michael Kunicki) is a recovering druggie who wants to escape the life of an addict with “Dara” (Sarah Joanou) but that is going to be easier said than done. His only real hope is to help his ex-boyfriend “Tommy” (Jesse Massaro) shift an whole load of highly toxic gear. He tries a dealer to no avail, and so then decides to work a folk festival selling pill by pill. What chance that can work? He’s also having a bit of a crisis of conscience about his previous life and it turns out that “Tommy” isn’t the nicest gay in the village either. There’s virtually no dialogue, the acting is really pretty nondescript and this also proves the old adage about the biggest enemy of independent film making being the audio. Throughout this overlong drama, the audio is more often than not barely audible. It’s like a twenty minute film that has been unimaginatively stretched out to over an hour using an excessive amount of padding, walking shots, doors opening and closing and unconvincing violence. It’s important that films like this continue to be made, but this in itself is entirely forgettable, mediocre and doesn’t deliver anything like it’s potential. Sorry, but it is aptly titled.