{"id":1463,"date":"2011-05-19T05:57:22","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T12:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1463"},"modified":"2011-05-19T05:57:22","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T12:57:22","slug":"review-target-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1463","title":{"rendered":"Review: TARGET PRACTICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>What starts out as a \u201cHangoveresque\u201d guys\u2019 weekend out turns very quickly into a modern \u201cSouthern Comfort.\u201d \u201cTarget Practice,\u201d now available on Netflix streaming, is one of the best indie action films of the last decade.<\/p>\n

Written and directed on a shoestring by Richmond Riedel, the film\u2019s script is a model of efficiency. Five friends take off to the mountains for a weekend of fishing and booze. When they almost run into an abandoned vehicle in the middle of a country road, an ambush catches them in a bloody crossfire. Unprepared to ward off this mysterious attack, the men run into the surrounding woods where they become hunted prey. The hunters? Homegrown terrorists! The boys have stumbled into a training camp for some really bad dudes. From there the survivors have to manage their escape, and no one is safe in this kill or be killed environment.<\/p>\n

Shot almost entirely outdoors, \u201cTarget Practice\u201d works primarily because it aims for low budget thrills. Using available natural lighting and the harshness of a wooded mountainside as its set, Riedel\u2019s story unfolds in almost real time permitting the viewer little opportunity to relax. From the first gunshot barely 10 minutes or so into his lean narrative, the movie is a constant barrage of fairly realistic deadly gun battles and harrowing knife fights. And while the movie lacks the high-gloss of a typical Hollywood actioner, the humble origins make it seem even more realistic and important.<\/p>\n

Riedel smartly doesn\u2019t wallow in melodrama as the five friends turn on one another pointing fingers as the situation goes from bad to worse. But this does not mean that he sacrifices character development. Conflicting loyalties among the friends and their attackers play credibly into the narrative building the tension. And it helps that Riedel has a talented cast that is up to the challenge of emoting while likely doing most of their own stunts.<\/p>\n

The success of a movie like \u201cTarget Practice\u201d for the viewer is the joy of discovering a film that isn\u2019t the kind of thing most people are used to watching. No doubt shot on digital video, the type that is now dated with advances in high-definition technology, the movie actually benefits from a rugged unpolished image. And given the sense of urgency that Riedel builds into the story, after a brief period of adjustment to the visual scope of the film, you can\u2019t help but be drawn in. One wonders whether the crisp beautiful images pumped out of the latest greatest video cameras like the Red Epic being employed to shoot \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d or its highly touted competitor the Arri Alexa would have improved the effectiveness of \u201cTarget Practice.\u201d I suspect not. Riedel\u2019s little film works because it\u2019s rough around the edges not in spite of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cTarget Practice\u201d is now available for rent or purchase online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ultimate indie actioner hits Netflix!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1467,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1463\/revisions\/1467"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}