An alienated teenager’s posturing online threat ignites a firestorm of fear in a small community.

Director: Jason Buxton
Writer: Jason Buxton
Actors: Connor Jessup, Alexia Fast, Michael Buie, Alex Ozerov

Directed by Jason Buxton, Blackbird follows isolated high schooler Sean Randall (Connor Jessup) as he’s accused of plotting a Columbine-like rampage and sent to juvenile hall. There’s unfortunately never a point at which Blackbird is able to become the searing, engrossing drama that Buxton has clearly intended, with the artificiality of the characters, particularly the protagonist, initially preventing the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the spare storyline (ie Sean almost comes off as a parody of a goth teen). Jessup’s competent yet closed-off performance only exacerbates the movie’s arm’s-length feel, and although Buxton offers up one or two compelling sequences (eg the guards count the cutlery after every meal, lest a prisoner walk away with a knife), Blackbird suffers from an excessively deliberate pace that only grows more and more problematic as time progresses. There does, as such, reach a point at which the viewer begins to feel like they’re trapped in prison with Sean, which might be exactly what Buxton intended, admittedly, yet it’s impossible to deny that the film ultimately feels much, much longer than its 103 minutes. It’s consequently not surprising to note that Blackbird, as it passes the one-hour mark, transforms into a dramatically inert and seriously interminable piece of work, with the movie’s increasingly uninvolving atmosphere canceling out its few positive attributes (eg Sean spends some time in solitary confinement) and cementing its place into a missed opportunity of nigh epic proportions.

IMDB

WEB-DL | MKV | 1280 x 720 | AVC @ 3847 Kbps | 106 min | 3.05 Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | Subs: English (embedded)
Genre: Drama | Canada