MBunge I usually prefer the entertaining to the artistic in movies, but Freeze Frame is the first film that I think would have been better if it had been less commercial and more idiosyncratic.Almost 10 years ago, Sean Veil (Lee Evans) was accused of a horrible triple murder he didn't commit. The case against him was thrown out of court because of the media grandstanding by lead detective Louis Emoric (Sean McGinley) and forensic psychologist Saul Seger (Ian McNeice). Since that day, Sean has been consumed by paranoia, fearful of the authorities framing him for another murder. His response to his fear is as obvious as it is disturbing. For nearly a decade, Sean has been videotaping every single second of his life. He has multiple cameras stationed throughout his dungeon-like home. When he goes outside, he straps a camera to his chest. Sean has created a visual record of every step, every meal, every night's sleep, every bowel movement, everything in his life for 9 years, 11 months and 28 days and stores all of those videotapes in a vault to provide him with the perfect alibi if he's ever wrongly accused again.Sean might have gone on with his fearful and compulsive existence forever, but then a TV crime reporter named Katie Carter (Rachel Stirling) tells Sean she thinks he's innocent. That's what Sean has wanted more than anything in the world but he barely has time to enjoy it when the police burst in and accuse him of killing a woman 5 years ago. When Sean goes to get the tapes proving his innocence…they're gone. In a panic, Sean flees from the cops and tries to come up with another way to deflect this unjust charge but in doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that not only reveal who's framing him now, but who framed him for the massacre of the Jasper family 10 years ago.This is a nice little film that's quite visually interesting. Some of it is shot like a normal film and some of it is footage from the many cameras Sean uses to record his life. It's a very good effort at utilizing the emotional and personal realism of the "handheld video" genre while freeing the story from the limitations of that style.Lee Evans does a fine job portraying a man whose obsession for control and protection has warped his personality. Sean McGinley gives the right air of desperation to a cop who is fighting off his own death long enough to catch Sean Veil and make him pay for something. Ian McNiece is also perfectly self-righteous as the psychologist who catapulted himself to fame on the Jasper murder case. Rachel Stirling's character is more of a plot device than a real person, but she handles well everything the plot needs Katie Carter to do.Freeze Frame, however, doesn't do enough with its own concept. The idea of a man so paranoid that he voluntarily lives under perpetual video surveillance of his own design suggests an awful lot of emotional and logistical ground to cover, but almost all of those details or possibilities are shoved aside because the film is more about being a clever mystery caper. The story only touches on Sean Veil's elaborate construction of his observation system in the most basic and shallow way. We also never get a sense of what kind of man Sean was before his initial arrest and the following years of obsessive personal vigilance, so there's nothing to compare to his present paranoid state. It limits the ability to sympathize with Sean because you don't really know how screwed up he is compared to his original self. I think the story would have been more effective if it had chucked most of the mystery and instead concentrated more on the way Sean lives his life and how it's changed him as a person.There are also a couple of significant twists in the story that don't add up. There's one element that couldn't exist in the American media and justice system, but this is an Irish film and I'm not sure if Irish laws on crime reporting are different enough to make the twist plausible. The climax is also too pat and neat and requires a character's behavior and mental state to flip 180 degrees for absolutely no reason.You won't be disappointed if you watch Freeze Frame, but you may feel like you've just seen a good idea that went largely unexplored.

xredgarnetx Irish-shot FREEZE FRAME stars the goofy, jug-eared guy from FIFTH ELEMENT and THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY as a paranoid murder suspect who constantly videotapes himself to prove his whereabouts. A TB-stricken detective has in it for him after the guy gets off on a triple-murder charge. Someone else appears to be shadowing the poor guy and possibly breaking into his home to steal some of his tapes. And a strikingly beautiful woman is after him for other reasons. The ending comes as a shocker of sorts, although it all feels a bit contrived. The film is shot mostly in muted colors or no colors at all, and the suspect wanders about with his head end eyebrows shaved and a videocamera attached to his torso. While this Kafka-esquire film is listed as running 99 minutes, after while it begins to seem more like 199 minutes. Not much honestly happens until the end. A truly erotic "rape" scene near the end perks things up a bit. For indie film fans only.

Jackson Booth-Millard Dropping his genius active stand-up comic and rubber-face image, Lee Evans in a serious role is pretty good. Basically Sean Veil (Evans) was almost convicted by a near murder, and he tapes himself 24-7 to make sure he has an alibi if he is found suspected, or guilty. Along the way he comes across many people trying to get into his mind and understand him, including Forensic Profiler Saul Seger (Ace Ventura 2's Ian McNeice) who believes he knows him more than he knows himself. Also trying to find his guilt or innocence are Detective Louis Emeric (Sean McGinley), who is dying from coughing up blood, and Colin Salmon as Detective Mountjoy, who is just going with the flow. There are people that may believe his innocence though, including Katie Carter (Rachael Stirling), who is the murder victims' sister! Anyway, whatever happens to him, he has all the filmed evidence to help him prove his innocence. A creepy story from a first-time director, with paranoia and a disturbing bald Evans. Good!

ofjeworstlust ...but it ends with a uneasy feeling.The characters aren't sympathetic and everyone seems to have a kind of neural disorder. But hey, what would you expect from a dark thriller like this. Especially dark because of the lighting and colors used during daylight.The scenario attracted me to this film, and the first half definitely was worth the time. Somehow the dialogs are too long and too "deep" to keep the thriller feeling alive. A few small twists at the end, and you've got a perfect mix between memento, twisted and the fugitive.As the movie started, I was alerted by lines that made clear it was an Irish movie, and a lot of quite unknown actors passed by (notice the one with the double under chin...) It wasn't bad, but just don't have too much expectations!