Upon returning home as a hero from the Iraq War, Special Forces Agent Matt Taylor is thrown right into another battle. This time it is in his once quiet hometown where, as in Iraq, you don’t know who are friends and who are enemies. In a dark night filled with mental and physical violence, Matt must again reach into the darkest corners of his mind to fight his inner demons and survive in the homeland he fought to defend. The Dream is over...

When I started watching Dark Heart I was worried that it was going to be another cheap budget movie with a poor script, acting and production values. The first image of a mysterious figure stumbling and smearing blood on the windscreen of a car looked terrible - like a scene that should have been included on the outtakes.

However, as the movie progressed, the characters do get to you - especially the villains. And the script, which started off incredibly corny with unbelievable dialogue: "War's Hell. That much is true." starts to pick up a little.

Don't get me wrong, this is far from a great film but the actors, when they're given decent dialogue, are pretty believable. And there are some powerful one shot speeches that work quite well.

But what really stuck out for me was how nasty the villains were. I very rarely watch a movie and instantly hate the bad guys - and I'm even less inclined to be truly shocked by their actions. But in Dark Heart the bad guys are so bereft of any redeemable qualities it took me back to being a small kid in the playground - left powerless by the ruthlessness of the school bullies. And that for me was incredibly refreshing. I mean, when was the last time you really hated, with a passion, the bad guys?

Several of the scenes were incredibly uncomfortable to watch. Most of these revolved around the bad guys torturing an innocent.

There were quite a few bad scenes though. Examples include our hero walking into the local bar and being surprised when the bar maid doesn't recognise him. Well, duh! Maybe if he actually told her his name and how they used to know each other, instead of saying: "It's me!" and then looking surprised when she draws a blank, she might remember him. Then there's the POV moment where Taylor's sister looks at the camera and delivers a line. It's out of place and as it's never repeated I was left scratching my head why that scene was shot like that. There's also a very disorienting scene - where we first meet the bad guys - where the hand-held camera work is too jerky and annoying.

But then there are highlights which include a neat scene where our hero gets drunk and the camera gradually goes more and more out of focus (even if this technique is used later when it's not really necessary); Finn is one of the most convincing villains I've seen in a long while (even if his motives are so ridiculous that they become laughable); Itch is one of the sickest characters you're ever likely to see; and the movie didn't conclude as I was expecting - which really took me by surprise.

The only extra is the trailer - which is pretty bad. In fact, I think it would have actually put me off watching the main movie if I'd seen that first.

There's plenty here to warrant a viewing, but at the end of the day I can't whole-heartedly recommend this movie as there are a few too many lumps that need knocking out of the script. All it really needed was someone to go over the script and question some of the choices and Dark Heart would have been a much better movie.

5

Nick Smithson