By Geno McGahee
Lionsgate has just released MID-CENTURY to Blu-ray, Digital and On Demand, featuring the great Bruce Dern and Shane West. It is a stylish thriller filmed very well with some good things going on and some things that didn’t go over incredibly well.
The film has a message about female empowerment and it’s overbearing at times. A little subtlety with this topic would have gone farther and not taken away from the story that was being told. The story mixes some cult aspects and some paranormal stuff but it’s a not really a horror film. This one is more of a crime drama with some horror elements.
The film is more style than substance in the end but the building blocks of a good film were here. The set design and cinematography should be appreciated and the cast does their best with this, but the problem lies with the screenplay. The story was decent, but the dialogue lacked any genuine feel. There wasn’t a time that a scene hit me.
MID-CENTURY isn’t a terrible film, but it’s not a great film. It looks pretty, the acting is pretty good, but the lackluster screenplay sinks this one.
