Echo Boomers

When it comes to crime or heist films, Hollywood has definitely done their share in providing a plethora of them. No matter what the decade, there are many films of this genre to opt for: "The Hot Rock", the "Ocean's Eleven" films, "The Italian Job", "21", "Baby Driver", "The Sting", even "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". So, when "Echo Boomers" came along, it should be no surprise that this should be in the offing.

Mel Donnelly (Michael Shannon) stars as the leader of a rag team bunch of millennial loser criminals which is a crime thriller filled with pulse-pounding twists and turns. A recent college graduate, Lance Zutterland (Patrick Schwarzenegger) leaves school in debt, realizing everything he had worked towards was built on a lie. He ends up in Chicago, and through his cousin Jack (Gilles Geary) who resides there, is pulled into a criminal underground operation headed up by Donnelly. He finds his fellow peers, including Ellis Beck (Alex Pettyfer), Allie Tucker (Hayley Law), Stewart (Oliver Cooper) and Chandler Gaines (Jacob Alexander), fighting the system by stealing from the rich and giving to...well, themselves. With nothing to lose, they leave behind a trail of destruction but, with the cops closing in, tensions mount and Lance soon discovers he is in over his head with no way out. Being based on a true story, where Lance is telling his story to an author, Elaine (Lesley Ann Warren) as a flashback, this is one story that actually had a disclaimer that mentioned it being a true story, if you believe in such things.

Others to round out the cast are Kate Linder as Kathy Tucker, Ali Freeman as Caitlyn, Chelsea Jurklewicz as Server, Leslie Stratton as Ashley and Mike Hatton as Johnny.

This was effectively directed by Seth Savoy (shorts). Even though this filmmaker has directed many different shorts, his ability to stage and pace his actors so as to enable them to emit just the right amount of emotion was effective, and, as the film progressed, became more intense by the minute. He will undoubtedly receive more work. It was intensely written by Savoy (shorts), Jason Miller (shorts) and Kevin Bernhardt ("The Immortals" '95, "Hollow Point" '96, "Sweepers" '98, "Diplomatic Siege" '99, "Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying" '99, "Jill Rips" 2000, "Agent Red" 2000, "Virginia" '05, "Peaceful Warrior" '06, "Elephant White" '11, "S.M.A.R.T. Chase" '17, "Shiner" '18, "Cliffs of Freedom" '19). Obviously, by his very resume, Bernhardt certainly has the brunt of the experience between the three writers, and with that, this definitely became the film it truly needed to be. The story did have a tendency to start a bit slow, but once so many things started happening to this crew, the momentum definitely picked up. Also, all the individuals came from truly troubling backgrounds, hence they eventually assumed that this life is the best as they could end up with, but Lance really didn't have such a troubling background, so it was interesting how he just fell into their 'trap'. But, of course, we can become who and what we're around if it's a consistent pattern. Otherwise, this story was well thought out. Because this was a flashback, the audience knows they don't succeed, because it's the journey of how they end up is what carries you through this. Shannon was effective as his usual slimy bad guy character that he does so well. If this writing intrigues you, Bernhardt has two films that are in pre-production, "Dust" and "60 Feet, 6 Inches".

Like I mentioned, this isn't one of those films where you're wondering what happens to this crew (at least Lance). This is all about the trek he has to take to get to a place where he feels incredibly bad for what he's perpetrated. This was supposed to be released in the theater on 11-13-20, but because of the pandemic, it went to On Demand and subsequently to DVD. So I purchased it so I could critique it for you.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                     Rated: R                                                 93mins.