Hollywood is hard. As much as some film and television shows try to say otherwise, it’s a cold hard fact that the business of show is cutthroat. This harsh reality forms the jumping-off point for new genre film, Greenlight. Starring Chase Williamson (Beyond the Gates, Siren, and John Dies at the End), Greenlight follows an aspiring filmmaker that gets more than he bargained for after being hired to direct his first feature film.
Jack (Williamson) is struggling to make it as a filmmaker. He’s made a ton of short films, but is finding it hard to transition into features. The problem is one that will be familiar to many on the job hunt; in order to make a feature, he needs experience in making a feature, but he can’t get that experience without making one first. It’s the whole ‘you need experience to apply for the job, but need the job to get the experience’ debacle, so basically a snake eating itself. His problem is exacerbated by his girlfriend’s dad whom doesn’t have the highest opinion of Jack’s profession. So when he gets a call from a producer desperate for a director for his ready-to-go horror feature, Jack jumps at the opportunity. He soon regrets signing on though as the producer has one very specific caveat for the film – the final death in the movie must be real. Can Jack put aside his morals and take a life to achieve the one he’s always dreamed of?
This is a film that will ring all too true (murder aside) to many that have worked in and around the movie industry. With Greenlight, director Graham Denman casts a spotlight onto the harsh realities of the world of cinema. Mirroring art, the film marks Denman’s own first attempt at a full-length picture. The film within a film works to Denman’s advantage; the movie that Jack has been hired for – ‘The Sleep Experiment’ – is super-low budget. In a way this means that Denman himself can cheat with his own limited budget and can justify certain things looking slightly wonkier than those films of a bigger budget. There’s also an odd The Disaster Artist charm to the on-set life. The Sleep Experiment is no The Room, and there’s no Tommy Wiseau to derail the project, but it has the same manic spirit in the moments of production that we glimpse.
Chase Williamson has been steadily building a body of work within the genre circuit for the last few years. He’s starred in the likes of Beyond the Gates, Sequence Break, Artik and John Dies at the End, and has proved himself to be a rather diverse actor. He continues this trend with his turn as Jack, a role that, with the exception of Sequence Break, gives him the bulk of the run-time; the film firmly resting on his shoulders. Great shoulders they are too, as he plays Jack as just the right amount of average Joe that it’s easy for the audience to connect with him. He’s an especially identifiable character to anyone that’s had to struggle to try and achieve a goal. Where Williamson really shines though is in his handling of Jack’s conundrum of ‘kill and get his dream, or save a life and remain a nobody’. He also approaches Jack’s mounting paranoia in a considered way, never going too over the top, but just straddles the line.
Playing opposite Williamson as nefarious producer Moesby, is Chris Browning. Browning is a face that you’ll likely recognise from his recurring roles on Sons of Anarchy, The 100 and Bosch. Here he embraces his dark, sleazy and jealous sides, and plays Moesby somewhere between Carter J. Burke from Aliens, and Al Capone. He’s quietly menacing and is an all too accurate portrayal of some of the Hollywood snakes.
As stimulating as the film’s concept is, Greenlight does suffer on occasion. Some plot points aren’t quite as well developed as they could be and some of the side characters suffer from the short run-time. A key fatality of this is Jack’s girlfriend whom disappears for most of the story. The breakdown of their relationship feels like it should be a more prominent element of the overall plot, but within the time constraints it’s seemingly been left to one side so as to not make the movie feel bloated. There are also a handful of execution niggles, but for a first time feature, Denman has done commendably well.
Greenlight is available on demand from 25th February 2020.
