Supremacy (2014)

What a waste of my time!!!

Don't Believe the Hype

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Google Robert Walter Scully Jr. He was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. One difference was that he used a shotgun in the slaying of a Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff at the traffic stop in the beginning.

This is One of Those Low-Budget Movies that is Confined, Mostly, to a Couple of Small Rooms and the Director has the Characters Cry, Sob, and Bawl A Lot to Add Some Movement and Emotion to the Restrained Sets.This is Basically All Over Emoted with Much Shouting, Except for Danny Glover Who Whispers and Mumbles for Contrast. The Conflict Between the Neo-Nazi Couple and the African-American "Family" Consists of Guns to the Face, and Waterworks.Nothing Much Happens and a Few Flashbacks Relieve the Claustrophobic Atmosphere Once in Awhile and that Helps, but Ultimately the Film Goes Nowhere and Strains for Some Insight that is Rarely Attained. Joe Anderson Does OK but the Constant Gun Barrell He Thrusts in the Faces of the Hostages Gets Boring and Redundantly Silly After a While. Dawn Oliveri as the White Supremacy "Groupie" as She is Described Waivers Wildly and Fluctuates Between Psychotic and Motherly. None of this is Satisfying Trying to Deliver Messages About the Psychology of Hate Groups or the Bonding of Family in a Crisis that it Tries So Desperately to Convey. It is Done in an Overwrought Fashion and the Script is None too Smart About Any of It.

I think the most important thing is to first off, commend Joe Anderson - an actor who deserves far more recognition than he has been given in his long standing career; Tully is the film's inordinate saving grace, and it is not thanks to any brilliant script writing or cinematography, he brought both vulnerability and unexpected humanity to a character that would otherwise have fallen flatly into the 'bad ex-con' category.Tully, in the final scene, and in momentary glimpses throughout the film, provides the film with its emotional strength; you cannot look away from him - Anderson is pure pent-up energy, raw emotion.Regrettably, the film does not take his character as far as it needed to - Supremacy is a thing of enormous potential, it could be extraordinary. But, it is not. Tully, in the end, only has a brief moment of redemptive vulnerability, the moments in between are not enough. There was potential within the frame of the script to accelerate further, to shake the moral boundaries - I was hoping not to see another 'and then the bad guys get punished, the end' - I wanted this film to make me question what makes a person bad, if that exists at all, I wanted to feel more for Tully.That's not to say that Joe Anderson is not sympathetic in the role. But I'm uncertain how much of that was his strength as an actor, versus the filmmaker's intention - I'm guessing that it's pretty much all on Joe.The ending ought to have been left, at the very least, ambiguous. For a character to alter, and then be given the death penalty regardless - off screen, as a footnote - erases the work of the actor and the filmmaker; in the end, he is punished, karma/the law happens etc. Yes, it's based on a true story, but it's still a narrative film - that's no excuse. The ending diminishes Anderson's strikingly childlike performance in the last scene - he takes the thunder from Glover altogether, we care about Tully (or would, if the character arc had been more pronounced), ending it on a footnote is lazy script writing.To conclude, I did enjoy the film, it was well made, there were moments when the cinematography was lovely to look at. I wish that they had hired another writer, however, because the potential of the film was probably greater than the film itself.

When the film "Supremacy" begins, you see a message that says that this story is based on a real case. I did a bit of research and could find nothing about this case--but it sure left me wanting to know more. The opening scene is just outside a prison and Garrett Tully (Joe Anderson) has been released. A women he doesn't know is there to pick him up, and obviously some sort of wicked plan is uniting them. Before too long, their pickup truck is stopped by the police and Tully panics and kills the cop. They flee and soon take refuge in a home full of people. The choice of homes is ironic, considering that Tully is an avowed white supremacist--and their captives are a black family. Through the rest of the film, you see Tully and his female accomplice terrorize the family and you wonder if any of these people are going to end up alive by the end of the story.As you can tell by my description that this film has a very simple plot. However, it makes the most of it and is an awfully well made film considering its humble pedigree. The director (Deon Taylor) and the writer (Eric J. Adams) are relative newbies with filmmaking. And, apart from Danny Glover who plays the family patriarch, the actors are mostly folks who will be unknown to the viewer. But it all works so well. In particular, the acting of Anderson as the kidnapper, Lela Rochon (Odessa, the mother) and Glover (Mr. Walker) are really superb and make the story seem quite real.This is not a perfect film but it is far better than I'd expected it to be. The ending alone is more than enough reason to watch the film. My only reservations are about the appropriateness of the film for all audiences. It has a few violent scenes, one sexual encounter and a ton of language that might just make you blush. While the language certainly help to give this one an R rating here in the States, I appreciated how the film avoided being politically correct--and used extremely vivid and offensive racial epithets and stereotypes. After all, racism is ugly and here it is shown in all its ugliness. Well done and worth seeing.