Slaughter Is the Best Medicine (2014) Directed by Rishi Thaker

Well, I'm sure that everyone involved had a great time working on this movie but that doesn't make for a good movie as well.

This movie really is nothing but an amateur project, that somehow made it to DVD. And really, this is the type of movie I would have loved to have made with a couple of friends but that's exactly how this movie feels like; an amateur project made by a couple of friends in their spare time, featuring a bunch of big fake guns, fancy looking army outfits, some woodlands, a guy's garage and a silly nonsensical story. Really sounds like this movie got made by a couple of 14-year olds but no, this actually is a 'serious' attempt at film-making, done by a bunch of guys and girls, who look to be around their 30's.

So yes, expect lots of bad acting, poor dialog, bad and cheap looking effects, simplistic writing and some poor sound quality from this movie. Really, the thing that always bother me the most about shoestring budget movies is the sound. Two different persons, who both appear to be standing in the same room, can be talking in the very same scene to each other, yet somehow one of them sounds like he's standing in a well, while the other person can be heard perfectly clear. Stuff like that always distracts- and truly bothers me.

In regards to the story...well, does it really matter? I mean, most of the time you won't even know what is going on and you'll forget that it's even actually still following a story. The story in itself still is pretty simple and straightforward, despite the film-makers hard efforts to throw in some surprising twists and elements. Wish I could say that any of the twists were anything truly clever or effective for the story. Lets just say, without spoiling too much, that it's all pretty far out there and therefor also only mostly works out as silly.

The movie foremost remains an action flick but just not a very good, spectacular or exciting one to watch unfortunately, because of the simple fact that most of the time the SAS soldiers are fighting- and shooting at absolutely nothing and I mean that in a literal way. All sounds terribly vague and cryptic but that is because the movie is a mystery-thriller as well. It's not a very engaging or interesting mystery though, since most of the time it simply isn't telling- or revealing anything to you at all. It just remains a vague mysterious movie, pretty much right till the final 10 minutes of it, when the 'big' finally twist gets revealed.

But of course you shouldn't be too harsh on this movie though. After all, it got made with basically no budget and presumably just by a handful of friends, who had no real training or background in film. In that regard, this movie also remains somewhat of an accomplishment and the movie actually still is pretty entertaining (it's silly but it at least doesn't bore) to watch but I just can't call it a very good one as well, mostly because of its writing and overall quality.

Positive thing about this movie are its characters. Usually the characters in these type of movies are nothing but some nameless ones, who all look and sound alike. Every character in this movie has a pretty distinctive look and personality to them and the movie spends enough time on setting them up- and introducing them to you, before the real 'story' kicks in. It makes the movie better to watch and the characters more fun to have to follow around.

A movie that's obviously not really worth watching but as an amateur project, it's not a totally terrible effort.

4/10

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