This film was done on a small budget and with actors that were clearly nonprofessional and probably just friends of the filmmakers. That alone does not condemn a movie to being bad; in fact, quite a few great movies came about in that kind of a setting (e.g. "Night of the Living Dead"). What matters is the story and the skill with which the filmmakers transform their simple surroundings into something interesting. Unfortunately, you don't get that in Towar.
The story deals with some petty criminals involved in sex trafficking and theft. They pose and act tough and try to have witty conversations in the chatty style of Quentin Tarantino or similar filmmakers with a preference for criminals. These depictions of the criminals all come across as individual imitations of other films strung together with little direction or attention to keeping audience interest. In imitating, the filmmakers tried to mimic physical executions of the scenes, thinking that would evoke the qualities they liked. But they failed to observe the purpose of adjacent scenes in these other films, which were important for setting mood, character development, tension, etc.
The camera-work and editing follow a similar sequence of flaws. Many initial shots in the scenes were clearly set up in imitation of shots from popular films (e.g. low angle shot of a car pulling up, stopping right in front of the camera), but the interesting camera angles don't persist past this initial conceit in the scene. Another imitation came through the use of CGI to zoom from one shot to another, which served no purpose other than to show off someone's graphics skills. And please, somebody inform these filmmakers that there are other ways to transition between scenes than a fade to black!
All together it's a poorly executed storyline by people who know which scenes they like in movies but don't understand why they like them. There's no horribly obvious flaws here, yet the movie still fails miserably at keeping the audience interested. The film collapses under the cumulative weight of the multiple amateurish mistakes. The inexperience shows through the inability to keep pacing or create any tension or cohesion. Best avoid this film.
The story deals with some petty criminals involved in sex trafficking and theft. They pose and act tough and try to have witty conversations in the chatty style of Quentin Tarantino or similar filmmakers with a preference for criminals. These depictions of the criminals all come across as individual imitations of other films strung together with little direction or attention to keeping audience interest. In imitating, the filmmakers tried to mimic physical executions of the scenes, thinking that would evoke the qualities they liked. But they failed to observe the purpose of adjacent scenes in these other films, which were important for setting mood, character development, tension, etc.
The camera-work and editing follow a similar sequence of flaws. Many initial shots in the scenes were clearly set up in imitation of shots from popular films (e.g. low angle shot of a car pulling up, stopping right in front of the camera), but the interesting camera angles don't persist past this initial conceit in the scene. Another imitation came through the use of CGI to zoom from one shot to another, which served no purpose other than to show off someone's graphics skills. And please, somebody inform these filmmakers that there are other ways to transition between scenes than a fade to black!
All together it's a poorly executed storyline by people who know which scenes they like in movies but don't understand why they like them. There's no horribly obvious flaws here, yet the movie still fails miserably at keeping the audience interested. The film collapses under the cumulative weight of the multiple amateurish mistakes. The inexperience shows through the inability to keep pacing or create any tension or cohesion. Best avoid this film.
