FALLING, THE(director/writer: Nicholas Gyeney; cinematographer: Nicholas Gyeney; editor: Nicholas Gyeney; music: Adrian Van Meter; cast: Scott Gabelein (Grayson Reed), Michael Ayden (Satan/Eric Laceon), Rory Colin Fretland (The Angel Michael), Donovan Marley (Father McQueen), Tellier Killaby (Kristy Reed), Garth Herrick (Ryan), Andrew Dickert (Sariel), Edi Zanidache (Uriel), Rob Veatch III (The Fourth Angel), Ayanna Jingles (The Fifth Angel), Michael Taylor Donovan (Dr. Jason Ward), Nicholas Gyeney (Allyster); Runtime: 114; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Scott Gabelein/Michelle Gyeney/Nicholas Gyeney/Holland Smith; Echelon Entertainment; 2007)
“The kind of weird religious pic that might appeal to those on angel dust.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Writer-director-cinematographer-editor-bit player and coproducer Nicholas Gyeney has created this indie Catholic guilt-trip flick that is the kind of weird religious pic that might appeal to those on angel dust. It’s a retelling of Christ’s crucifixion with an incredible amount of hokum, in an incoherent way, with much pretentiousness, robotic acting that’s hard to take for close to two hours and, if you can believe, a musical score that’s more annoying than all the above.
The ridiculous plot has a hunky cop, Grayson Reed (Scott Gabelein), upset that his former cop partner and sister’s lover, Ryan (Garth Herrick), has freaked out over learning about a missing piece of scripture found by Father McQueen in the local library and as a result is so frightened that he’s again doing drugs. When Ryan’s killed in a wooded area along with other pot smokers, Grayson is led to believe that he was killed by the return of Satan (Michael Ayden). Five angels, led by Michael (Rory Colin Fretland), have left Heaven to warn us of Lucifer’s return. We are led to believe that the angels signed a treaty eons ago with Lucifer not to engage in war, and so they deem it’s up to the gung-ho flat foot Grayson to save the world and save his bereaved sister Kristy (Tellier Killaby) from Lucifer’s seductive ways.
God, this humorless and poorly developed film took itself so seriously and made things worse with every added cheesy plot development! It never clicked with me and I tuned the rambling tedious story out early on and never could get back into it.
REVIEWED ON 2/18/2008 GRADE: C-
Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”
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