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When first hearing about the idea of Storyline ,my thought was...Man...My scripts were so short that he has to make them into one movie?...But upon further thought...I thought it was a damn good idea. :) The separate films ,had the problem of being bogged down by filler...Mostly seen in The Thief ,which has one two many scenes of Nick basically lounging around ,not doing much of anything. In this edition we get the fat trimmed ,and the flow of the film is improved by it. Also this edition fixes the times when the dialog was obscured by noise by way of dubbing. The dubbing doesn't sound as awkward here ,as in previous films. It's even used to change a character's personality ,as Patrick suddenly becomes calm ,cool ,and collected. :) Also it's good to see some added stuff ,like Marco calling Nick before the job ,and seeing the tracer that Damien is looking at. (Wish the music at the Police Station could have been taken out ,but I can live with it I guess :) Also looking back I should have put a few more Angel Of Death kills in there. Plus the old man mask...Well looks like a mask....It's still a pet peeve of mine so to speak...But what can you do? I personally would have just had far away shots of him only ,and then from the neck down when Damien checks for a pulse. The mask really should have been gone in the flashback ,because the old guy is now a young guy :) Also the audio effect on the Alexia narration wasn't really my cup of tea ,and it was sometimes hard to follow what she was saying But these are just nitpicks ,and didn't ruin the great experience I had watching the film.
Mike D.'s StoryLine review Unlike most of my reviews for the Dark Night Films, this one will be a tad different since StoryLine is a re-edited version of two previously released films: The Thief and Pray For The Hunters. I hadn't seen pray For The Hunters before but I had seen The Thief and thought I knew what to expect, but the first half of StoryLine is different from the original cut of The Thief. Keep in mind, this review does contain spoilers! So without further ado, here's the good, the bad and the ugly about StoryLine: THE GOOD: First of all, StoryLine is what should have been released initially instead of the inferior Thief and Pray for the Hunters films as separate entities. There have been MAJOR improvements with the film editing!! Excellent job! While not perfect, the majority of the edits were smooth and seamless. The film was also cast well with Kaisha Johnson as Alexa and, of course, Matt Spease reprising his favorite role as Nick Wilson. But it is Isaak Partlow who steals the show as The Angel of Death during the second half of the film. The new Alexia narration is also a good addition and the omission of the unnecessary (and hokey) filler scenes from each film was also a smart move. Now we have a film clocking in at 2 hours of quality StoryLine as opposed to 73 minutes of The Thief that had less than an hour or relevant footage. The post-production audio was also improved upon as well but... THE BAD: The audio added in post-production, while improved from previous films, was inconsistent. Background noise appeared and disappeared from scenes at will and there were also some scenes where the lip sync was off. While this has become typical when watching a Dark Night Film, it's nowhere near as prevalent as it has been in the past. Some of the lighting and colors are also inconsistent throughout the film: some scenes are too dark while others are too bright and appear washed out. Also some goofs like Nick shooting Rossi 5 times at point blank range and only 3 additional bullet holes appear in Rossi's body. There is also some video pixilation due to the compression. This can be alleviated by eliminating some of the useless extras on the disc. While the deleted intros are good to watch, the filler that was omitted from The Thief doesn't need to be included here. Nobody will miss closeups of Nick Wilson smoking cigarettes, the gun test footage or the auditions (especially th! ose actors who did not make the cut). The music videos are also unnecessary. Most of them have their video out of sync with their audio and we really don't need THREE music videos that are basically highlights of the StoryLine film that is already on the disc. While all of the songs themselves are good, I suggest doing ONE music video and having it be one of the original songs composed for the film instead of the cover tunes. And finally, some of the editing isn't as smooth as the rest of it. The video jumps suddenly in some scenes (though not substantial, it's still noticeable) and is even prevalent in the credits and on the deleted scenes as well. I also didn't like how the film ended with a remade scene from Evil on Queen Street where Nick first gets out of jail and meets Alexia all grown up and informs her that Damien had died. I think the film should have ended with the previous scene where Alexia was sitting in the chair saying how she hadn't seen Dam! ien or Nick in a while and then faded to black/credit roll. THE UGLY: The Hi-8 camera needs to be retired!!! There are random video hits from the camera's cassette tape (which make for painful distractions when combined with the compression macro-blocking) and the video quality suffers from the camera's limitations. Dark Night Films is going to the next level, but the films will all be ultimately limited to the camera that they are filmed on. High school is over, so it's time for a SERIOUS upgrade. I recommend the ARRIFLEX 16SR 3 Super 16 camera. OVERALL: StoryLine receives an 8.5 out of a possible 10. Had StoryLine been released INSTEAD of The Thief and Pray For The Hunters as opposed to after those films, the score would have been a 9. Upgrade the camera and spend more time really hashing out the script and production values. Don't rush the next film, just take your time and do it perfect the first time instead of putting out a film and then remastering it later in the future over and over again and the next film may very well be a perfect 10!
