From the title alone you can pretty much infer that it didn’t go down too well, because it’s doubtful that they make a movie about how well it all went down. So, there’s that. There’s also the fact that the preview trailers on the DVD consist of low-rent, low budget crime thrillers starring a bunch of D-listers straight out of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (Gary Busey, Daniel Baldwin, Tom Sizemore…need I say more?). So you can imagine how low my expectations were for this particular low-rent, low budget crime thriller.
Our story concerns Carmine “Istante” Cavelli, a young filmmaker attempting to scrounge up money to finance his feature film, aptly titled V.I.O.L.E.N.T, with each letter corresponding to a separate story. Unfortunately, few others [read: no one] share his enthusiasm for the project, and thus he is forced to go back to his previous life as a drug dealer. And that’s when it really starts to go down. Carmine becomes Istante, his former drug-dealing alias, and starts pushing snow like there’s no tomorrow. It’s entertaining for a while, but truth be told, it gets kind of tedious. There’s only so many times that you can watch Carmine get preachy with a hooker, or threaten to kill a junkie who’s stiffed him, or threaten to kill a pimp who’s stiffed him, or threaten to kill anyone else who might have stiffed him or might owe him or whatever. The encounters are so sundry and so interchangeable that it’s hardly worth paying attention. Once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. These scenes are inter-cut with overly drawn-out driving sequences, dance club sequences, strip club sequences, and drug-taking sequences.
Nonetheless, the acting is surprisingly solid, especially in relation to Silvio Pollio, who is the film’s star as well as its director. That said, clichés abound in the writing as well as the cinematography (the dramatic close-ups during the moments when Carmine is debating whether or not to resort to drug-dealing to finance his feature are particularly groan-inducing.) It’s not that either aspects are handled poorly, but they lack a certain finesse that seems to come so easily with a bigger budget and a big name director. Maybe I’m just being biased. The amateur quality, which can sometimes be a good thing, pervades the narrative in such a way that it’s impossible not to be distracted by it. All the ingredients for a properly stimulating crime film are there: pimps, thugs, strippers, desperation, drugs, hookers, violence, grime…but somehow it continually failed to hold my attention. Actually, the premise of Silvio Pollio’s film within a film was much more intriguing than the film itself. That in itself is pretty disconcerting, but there are bigger causes for concern here than that. The main problem with How It All Went Down is that it’s altogether way too predictable to be memorable. The back of the DVD boasts of review snippets from the Vancouver Sun and Entertainment Today, and both of them liken the film to the early works of Martin Scorcese and Brian de Palma. The comparison works and all too well; it’s pretty clear that these are the films that Pollio drew from to create his own watered-down, lesser version (True Romance also comes in at one point). But because he isn’t doing anything new with the genre, it seems superfluous, gimmicky, and, dare I say it, almost masturbatory. It’s a decent effort, and Pollio does exhibit some notable talent, both as a filmmaker and as an actor, but let’s face it: V.I.O.L.E.N.T. may have been the better way to go here.
DVD Bonus Features:
The extras on this one are miniscule, as they are comprised of mere deleted scenes (which are never that great, and they’re exponentially less great when the film in question is mediocre) and a trailer. It’s a bit of a bummer, but I highly doubt anyone’s going to be all that disappointed after sitting through the entirety of Scarface’s boring stepbrother.
"How It All Went Down" is on sale May 5, 2009 and is rated NR. Crime-Thriller, Drama. Written and directed by Silvio Pollio. Starring Daniella Evangelista, Paige Gray, Silvio Pollio.
