Evidence (2013)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

People are voting emotionally.

Fantastic!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is one of the most annoying films in the history of movie-making. The female cast in the 'found footage' is the most over-excitable I have ever seen - everybody seems to want to talk, shout or scream all at the same time (not unusual in Loudmouth America but not good in a film) and the hand-held camera footage is so all over the place and jerky it renders the whole piece unwatchable. Some of you might enjoy this kind of rubbish (if you liked the equally unwatchable and massively overrated Blair Witch Project - you will probably like this). Watching crap like this will probably encourage the development of epilepsy, so good luck with that. This is a truly awful piece of film-making.

EvidenceWhat's this Movie About?"Detectives try to solve the murder of a group of people using video footage from multiple recording devices."I really do feel like I wasted an hour and a half of my time.Planning on doing this a little different and not spoiling as much at first. Basic premise is two friends and a boyfriend go on a vacation to Vegas. Along the way, they meet up with a variety of different people and have one more stop before heading out. Too bad their bus gets tangled in barbed wire and they get stranded out in the middle of nowhere.The acting is hit or miss. Sometimes it good but other times it bad, really bad. I'll say that Rachel is very likable at first but when chaos ensues, she becomes a screaming typical horror movie girl. Most of the detective characters act idiotic and rash without thinking. An example is Detective Burquez who rushes to find the suspect without knowing all the facts and then later makes a claim that isn't true and she would know it wasn't if they did a couple more minutes of research. The video evidence guy is completely incompetent and has to allow Detective Reese to do his job for him by clearing up some issues on the footage. Also, the forensics tech who is supposed to examine the bodies but is too busy being fat and lazy...sorry I have little tolerance for incompetence.I have to tell you, this is a found footage movie so right off the bat, most people won't like it. I have been split on found footage movies. I thought Blair Witch was OK, Quarantine is OK, Paranormal Activities were OK, VHS was ... You get the picture. I have never really been against found footage while there have been lots of complaints about the format. This movie is the movie that pushed it overboard. There's just too much jumbled nonsense, extreme close ups and garbled voice acting that I don't think I can defend or appreciate this type of filming again. All of the above is evident in this movie but has an extra kick to it. We are watching a group of detectives watch video footage trying to decipher it because 'the footage was in a fire and was badly damaged'. What they mean is this basic amateurish camera work is shoddy at best and is hard for even detectives to search through. Found footage is not the way I will be enjoying movies going forward. The style just doesn't make sense. Oh, and we get a horrible version of night visions!Now, on to what I did like. The killer in this movie is super unique up until the end. Someone in a welders mask and who uses a blow torch to kill people is pretty cool. Does have a set back though seeing as how the range is very limited due to the hose.The women in this movie are super cute so at least there's something to look at when you can actually see what's going on.There's a scene later in the movie which I don't want to give too much away right now but it involves mutilation and you don't see much but the sound and seeing wriggling feet as chunks of flesh are being tossed to the side is very effective. Wasn't overblown and walked that line of good storytelling and showing just enough.Should you watch this?I wouldn't waste your time. There is only a couple moments of entertainment and enjoyment. I'd say just watch the mutilation scene which in my opinion was the best part but other than that pass.Spoilers and Plot QuestionsOK, so it was all a movie... Kind of. So Rachel calls herself a director and Leann is the actress. Should've seen this coming. They say they can't have the trip without Leanns boyfriend which was kind of weird and should have been a sign. They introduce us to the cast on the bus. Leann and Rachel set this all up and killed everyone so they could make a movie and become famous.So, how did they know who all would be there? How did they know that there would be only that many people and not a bus full of people, some of who could get out of the predicament by simply overpowering them?The detectives act like they didn't know there was a fourth woman on the bus but wouldn't they already know that since the bodies were there? There can only be so many sets of arms and legs even if the bodies were blown apart.Why would they put out the video of them doing that? I'm guessing the answer is to become famous but now the cops know who did it and if caught will go to jail.Detective Reese says that those weren't glitches and the footage wasn't messed up but instead they were edits. I'm not the smartest or know anything about video editing or surveillance recovery but if this wasn't messed up camera footage, would you be able to clear up and decipher frames of footage to see unclear images? Also, even though the video tech guy is an idiot, I would think he would be able to tell the difference between an edit and damaged footage.

The film opens to an overview of a crime scene. The visuals are impressive, in a way; that is, a lot of effort was taken to produce an amateurish result. In this director's approach, good visuals have to be accompanied by plodding boredom, while shaky cam, cell phone footage, and pixelated, blurred images are where the action and interest should be kept.We segue to a police department, where the evidence has been collected and sorted to a degree. The personnel to evaluate the evidence gets picked.The investigatory group consists of Detectives Reese and Burquez, Officer Jensen, and AV specialist Gabe Wright. They set about analysing the 'found film' from Rachel's camera, plus the visuals recorded by cell phones, plus the overviews from the beginning of the film. Close consideration yields some clues for the Detectives to pursue.Amateur director Rachel likes to film 'incredibly uncomfortable things.' Indeed. Leanne is in a troubled relationship with Tyler Norris, who is a mediocre singer and less than good guitar player. Rachel decides to film Leanne 'before she was a big star.' We also have the badness of hand-held cameras. This includes horrible framing, rotten sound leveling, extraneous sounds, and large time gaps.Rachel, Leanne, Tyler, Vicki, and a young entertainer are scheduled to take a trip to Las Vegas. Though not on the passenger manifest, Katrina gets on the tour bus as well. She has a huge amount of cash on her, and might be a fugitive. When Tyler and Rachel notice that they are on a side road, Rachel goes to talk to the driver. Things go decidedly bad after that, including the bus crashing.The film progresses to the retelling of the deaths and the unveiling of the perpetrators. How does that play out? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 4/10 Shaky camera work. Stupid framing angles. Dropped frames, severe pixelation. Insufficient light, heat-damaged memory chipsSound: 4/10 Speech is mostly comprehensible, but there is plenty of raw microphone noise, such as when cell phones are dragged on the floor while recording.Acting: 2/10 Stephen Moyer had a couple of good moments in this film; Harry Lennix is his usual reliable self.Screenplay: 0/10 After watching this, I will avoid properties directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, or written by John Swetman. For a better film about lesbian criminals, see Breaking the Girls (2013), Monster (2003), or Bound (1996). The 'twist' at the end is cliché, done before and done better.

What a start this film has. A frozen picture of a crime scene, taken by a low flying drone camera, like nothing I've seen. A bit was resembling the 2001-film Swordfish, but still this was amazing. It immediately lit my interests immensely. Some obviously CGI, but still a haunting start!This is another take on the found footage genre. But different. Some kind of meta theme in the footage as well. This is evidence found on a couple of phones and video cameras at a crime scene. At the start of the film we get a glimpse of what have happened, but what lead up to it. No one at the crime scene is alive to give any explanation. The tape shows a group of youngsters arriving at a desolated place with a lot if abandoned trucks and houses.Like most found footage, this is both annoying and exciting at the same time. A genre difficult to immediately like, but still interesting in many ways. The fourth outing from American director Olatunde Osunsanmi, and the first I've seen. Though there's a lot of cameras around, there's a lot of not so likely here towards the end, before whole film takes a twist, making it more likely after all. Smart film, with an interesting plot. A good, twisting found footage flick, most of all recommended to the fans of the genre.