Burning Cane

source: Burning Cane

Slow and boring...dark and depressing...cynical and on the nose...style over substance...sleep inducing

This is definitely not the worst movie I have ever seen! But it definitely moves very slowly with a depressing storyline that is very difficult to follow. An hour in, frankly, I'm still not very sure of the storyline itself. Honestly, I had to refer to online reviews to understand it other than the fact that it revolves around lost, broken black men and religion. In fact, the storyline is so poorly drawn compounded with the way the camera often pans in and out, one initially believes there may be sexual abuse of Jeremiah by his father given the heavy use of alcohol in some of the scenes. Thankfully I guess that's not the case. The cinematography really threw me because some of the scenes are so dark that I literally cannot make out what's happening. At other times, the outdoor scenes are really beautiful and well done. The characters are quite one-dimensional which is also unfortunate. Jeremiah is something of a prop because we really don't know anything about him. The father is also largely just a shadowy drunk. Toward the end, we get rushed information about him through a single narrative/conversation but it would have been nice to have found out more about his life progressively throughout the film. We don't really understand how he came to be a drunk. Obviously, he wasn't born a drunk. Did he ever work? Did he ever leave this area and come back? Was he ever NOT depressed? He nearly becomes a ghost before we know anything about how he actually lived. Same with the stereotypical Pastor. By now, I think we've seen enough films from scarred black people who have been to churches with fallen pastors. Not every Pastor in the black church is shady though. Just want to put that out there. Anyway, the film could have been clearer but for a 19 year old, I'm going to give him some leeway.

A very slow moving movie, the hand held camera shots gave it a home-made feel but this style was delivered at the expense of any substance. With a drunk pastor, lots of drinking and smoking, you wondered just what message it was aiming to deliver. Fortunately the Blues backing soundtrack and the gospel singing was great. Not enough to save the movie that was in the end, just a little dull.

Loved it, ignore the Negative people. This film is a must see, a lot better than any of the knuckle heads still trying to make a movie

Poor film quality left me not sure what was happening at several junctures. While darkness in certain films can be an effective device, I'm not sure whether that was the intent or that the lighting was just of poor quality. I actually believe this film could possibly be re-edited for a better result. The tone of the film seemed to very effectively capture a brooding, slow paced, drone on, and difficulty of life among people living at the edges of society. While I thought that to be true, I believe the script could have been altered to increase the pace. Acting was very effective and credible.

Not well done. I could tell this so called black film was not written by a black person; The way it depicts such ugliness and ignorance in the black characters. Self hate? Weirdly boring and outlandish 😡

Great movie! It was slow but it did hold my attention. This movie is very realistic and powerful. There is the struggle between religion and coping with demons in movie, which some people deal with in this world. Kudos to the young director who put this movie together. I look forward to seeing more of his work.

A prime example of how reviewers are completely irrelevant. People politics have become the primary focus, rather than the content and particularly quality of the film itself. How many films now have great critical responses but mediocre user ratings? Not because the public is so uninformed, but that the film, the entity they're supposed to be assessing, is of questionable quality. This is one such film. Poorly shot, bad lighting, pointless scenes that drag on and on, with little development in story or character. One decent performance. A good location, wasted through an amateur production. Really, there's not a lot more to say about it. The critics just saw color and the director's age and jumped to the now predictable glowing states. Perhaps they're the real bigots, that they feel they have to automatically prop some filmmakers up because of their origins. A true system without personal judgment would simply focus on the work. And that is not the case here.

I watched this film because I'm a big fan of Wendell Pierce. I think he's an incredible actor who's talent is underutilized. Whereas Mr. Pierce's talent shone through in this film, the film itself was murky. It was slow; the film was poorly lit; the message too be conveyed, if there was a message, was absent from the film; and the writing seemed unsteady. I feel like I wasted my 78 minutes on characters who were not likeable and who were extremely detached from each other and from the film. This film was over-hyped and a waste of time, and I can't help but think that the critics raved over the film because it presented yet another set of black folks who were downtrodden, addicted to a substance, and self-pitying.