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Inspired by true events (naturally), Trigger follows pals Reggie (Cunningham), Ray (Sullivan), and Sean (Reid) as they meander through the woods of Delaware in search of game, only to find themselves being hunted. (Feel free to toss in your own little ‘DUH-DUH-DUHHH!’ right here.)

However, in the fifty or so minutes until things go inevitably awry, even the characters remark on just how tremendously boring their circumstances are. With barely a name and a trait apiece, our trio wanders and wanders and wanders throughout the wilderness, as if writer/director West (The Roost) shot first and added the story later, leaving his film to initially play like Old Joy if those characters had a rifle handy.

And shoot West does, with a relentlessly roaming camera and ever-ominous score that never forgets to imply quite heavily that someone, somewhere, might just be watching them at any given moment. Once the crucial shots ring out, the wanderer(s) eventually drift(s) towards an abandoned mill nearby, and it’s only in some eleventh-hour moments that West’s guidance begins to grow less obvious, suggesting something more akin to a real movie than a hey-wouldn’t-it-be-cool, on-the-cheap, on-the-fly film school exercise.

If nothing else, West and friends prove that one doesn’t need a big budget to create a big bore. As far as cat-and-mouse games go, one would likely be better off in the company of Tom and Jerry.

link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=15850&reviewer=409
originally posted: 03/18/07 09:22:59
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