I'm a fan of crime dramas, and there's a certain movie in that genre that I keep telling my DVR to record so I can watch it. However, what I get each time it's recorded is not the crime drama I expected, but another movie - with the same name - about the sexcapades of two women that comes up just shy of being full-blown porn. In short, I keep ending up with a different movie than the one I expected to see (not that I'm complaining). That's exactly how I felt about the film Aftershock (2013) (although in the latter instance, I am definitely complaining.)
According to the description, this movie is supposed to be about the horrific civil unrest that follows a massive earthquake in Chile. Sounds like it could be interesting, right? Wrong!
First of all, the earthquake - a seminal part of the movie - doesn't actually happen until about 40-50 minutes into the film (which is only about 90 minutes long). Yes - the event that drives the plot doesn't occur until the movie is about halfway over. (Frankly speaking, this is what led to my confusion in large part, and had me wondering if I was watching some other movie with the same name as the earthquake film.)
To be honest, up until the earthquake actually happened, I truly thought I was watching some kind of romantic comedy. (The film basically has three guys bumping into three girls, and they all end up hanging out together.) Even worse, the film probably would have worked better as a rom-com, because the plot really seemed to be leaning in that direction. (I really thought I had the wrong movie thanks to a cameo by Selena Gomez, whose presence I interpret as meaning that she either owed someone a favor or her agent/manager sent her the wrong script.)
Next, because the quake came so late in the film, the major conflict in the movie is also rather tardy. The result is that the entire premise of the movie has to get crammed into the last half of the film, and it's not a good fit. The remainder of the movie feels rushed - as if the director is trying to get in the the Guinness Book of World Records for how much disjointed, violent shit he can shove on-screen in 30 minutes.
It almost goes without saying that this was a low-budget film, but that didn't bother me. You can make great movies without budgets the size of some countries' GDP, and low-budget movies - in particular, low-budget horror - can be enormously profitable. This movie, however, just missed the mark on so many levels I'd be hard-pressed to name them all.
As to how this movie could have been better: first of all, the earthquake needed to happen a hell of a lot sooner than the halfway mark. Maybe the director was going for the slow build, but this wasn't the type of movie where that was likely to work. This was like watching a murder mystery, where the murder doesn't happen until almost 2/3 of the movie is over.
Next, the movie was pretty uneven. It really leaned towards being perhaps some kind of romantic comedy before suddenly switching gears and becoming something else entirely.
Finally, it was difficult to invest in any of the characters. In most films, there should be someone that you root for: there's the guy that you want to get the girl, the detective you want to catch the killer, etc. In this movie, you just really didn't care - you just wanted it to be over.
In short, this was a movie that probably had potential, but those who made the film simply didn't know how to capitalize on it, and ended up instead with a movie that was something of a mess.
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