Thirty Nine (2016) - Reviewed





Thirty Nine (2016) Josh Evans, Robert Wagner, Roxy Saint


I have sat through a great deal of bad movies and generally try to provide the readers with something positive, understanding that judging a film is a truly subjective experience. Unfortunately, I cannot do this for the new picture that is written, directed, produced, and starring Josh Evans. 39 is about a man who is going through a divorce while trying to put together a movie production in Hollywood. It is clearly an attempt to mimic the style of Terrence Malick; attempting to resemble the director’s recent release Knight of Cups. The similarities are strictly in the minimal use of dialogue and the attempt to use visuals to tell the story. But this is nowhere near the stunning visuals of Malick’s work and should be unequivocally avoided at all cost.


The cinematography is absolutely brutal. It is done in somewhat of a documentary style, leading to many shaky camera and blurry sequences. I have seen kids put together better shots using their cell phones than what this one provides us with.  The narrative is weak and hard to follow at times, flipping through night and day and then past and present in a matter of seconds. The subplot involving the movie production is barely present and downright confusing at times. Most of the movie consists of a song beginning to play, then the music lowers for a line or two of dialogue and then the music gets louder again. This continues throughout the whole picture, recycling some of the same songs. The acting is weak and often feels forced and overacted, especially in one particular scene with the actress Natasha Gregson Wagner. Her father Robert Wagner makes an appearance in what would appear to have been done as a favor, since his daughter is co-starring in this.



Thirty Nine (2016) Josh Evans, Robert Wagner, Roxy Saint



Maybe I simply don’t know what I am talking about and this piece of work is above my understanding, but I truly believe that this has absolutely no redeeming qualities and is one of the worst motion pictures that I have ever seen. I have watched pornography that contains a better narrative, story structure, character development, and cinematography than this.  It is sad that the camerawork from an often untrained crew on an adult film is vastly superior to someone that graduated from the American Film Institute with a Master in Visual Arts as a Director of Photography.
Please, do anything else with your time than spending 82 minutes watching this disaster.


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Score

-Raul Vantassle