"Impact" suffers from some unfortunate director conceits, a lazy screenplay and too large of budget.
For example: New Dad runs out of the car to announce the news, goes back to the car for cigars, gives her cigars, goes back to the car and then runs back to take back most of the cigars he just handed out. Now I get that he's an excited new Father, but please, 3x? Does nothing.
Plus the pregnant-pause/false ending conceit that run throughout. Do we need that? Not clever and gets old fast. Columbo was a master but it falls flat in Impact.
Then the numerous dead-end fillers indicate a lazy, sloppy screenplay. Incredible as it may seem, the Producer may have had too much money. There is a enough of a story, enough meat to be able to get in to the heads of the characters. But they don't. Instead VO is used.
Scenes such as the needless volunteer fire dept scene serve no purpose to move the story forward. Hopefully someone had a gun to the editor's head, otherwise why have these at all? They belong on the editing room floor. Again too much money in the budget? Were they having a tough time filling the run time?
Last it suffers from to weakest of all screen techniques, Voice Over. Honestly, do we need to see him sitting on the bench, staring into space only to listen to dialog be repeated? Even if it is nicely mixed -and it is- c'mon,even he gets bored enough to pull out another smoke. Oooo he's thinking, putting the pieces together. His actions should indicate where his head is and let the audience's stitch things together. That makes a movie.
Those are my gripes.
Impact is a cool story. Generally well played and properly casted. As others have stated, the lighting is not Noir yet the storyline is, which is what holds this together. Which may be another indicator the budget was too large. Noir lighting came from low budget constraints. Cat People is the the film often used as where the technique got started and was basically a solution to a budget driven problem. No money to light with? Use shadows and let the viewer's mind infer.
If you are familiar with San Francisco its nice to see some shots from yesteryear.
Bottom line: Give it a new title, tighten up the script and redo the film with a great Director and a solid cast. Then it may have some Impact!
For example: New Dad runs out of the car to announce the news, goes back to the car for cigars, gives her cigars, goes back to the car and then runs back to take back most of the cigars he just handed out. Now I get that he's an excited new Father, but please, 3x? Does nothing.
Plus the pregnant-pause/false ending conceit that run throughout. Do we need that? Not clever and gets old fast. Columbo was a master but it falls flat in Impact.
Then the numerous dead-end fillers indicate a lazy, sloppy screenplay. Incredible as it may seem, the Producer may have had too much money. There is a enough of a story, enough meat to be able to get in to the heads of the characters. But they don't. Instead VO is used.
Scenes such as the needless volunteer fire dept scene serve no purpose to move the story forward. Hopefully someone had a gun to the editor's head, otherwise why have these at all? They belong on the editing room floor. Again too much money in the budget? Were they having a tough time filling the run time?
Last it suffers from to weakest of all screen techniques, Voice Over. Honestly, do we need to see him sitting on the bench, staring into space only to listen to dialog be repeated? Even if it is nicely mixed -and it is- c'mon,even he gets bored enough to pull out another smoke. Oooo he's thinking, putting the pieces together. His actions should indicate where his head is and let the audience's stitch things together. That makes a movie.
Those are my gripes.
Impact is a cool story. Generally well played and properly casted. As others have stated, the lighting is not Noir yet the storyline is, which is what holds this together. Which may be another indicator the budget was too large. Noir lighting came from low budget constraints. Cat People is the the film often used as where the technique got started and was basically a solution to a budget driven problem. No money to light with? Use shadows and let the viewer's mind infer.
If you are familiar with San Francisco its nice to see some shots from yesteryear.
Bottom line: Give it a new title, tighten up the script and redo the film with a great Director and a solid cast. Then it may have some Impact!