Movielogr
ECCO (2019)
Directed by Ben Medina
Twitter Facebook Google+Action | Mystery | Science Fiction
Overview
A former covert assassin seeks redemption by hunting the people responsible for his sinful past.
Rated R | Length 123 minutes
Actors
Lathrop Walker | Helena Grace Donald | Mahria Zook | Michael Winters | Vincent Cardinale | Bruce Weech | Tabitha Bastien
Viewing History (seen 1 time)
| Date Viewed | Device | Format | Source | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08/13/2019 | Movie Screen | Digital | Theater | 6 stars |
| (Average) 6 stars |
Viewing Notes
I don’t know anything about this but the premise sounded cool enough to get me in a seat. No AList left so 5$ Tuesday.
This is an odd flick to have arrive in 2019. Feels like a film you might’ve seen in late 90s/early 00s as it really stretches out the story with repeated images and melodrama that on first glance is character building but you realize not really. This is because you understand everything you need to know with a few scenes rather than repeating the same scenes over and over to give unnecessary weight, which is already there.
In a nutshell, a hired assassin portrayed by Lathrop Walker, whom I’ve never seen before but was nice to see a new face, (trained from birth) moves on to a domestic life but of course can not really leave the “organization” which is called CORPUS in the movie. So his private life is disrupted and he has to return to seek revenge or vengeance and discover the truth of his past and existence. Probably funded off the John Wick success as this is very JW lite. Also light on action and heavy on drama. Not a bad thing but it is when it adds 30 minutes to the runtime. There is no reason this movie needs to be 2+ hours. Sure, I’m happy to see Helena Grace Donald shot in beautiful lighting but after the first few times in the same scene it becomes tedious.
Has some nice stylistic choices and neat photography that keeps the viewer engaged. But it has a few headscratchers like when the assassin leaves an apartment to dispose of a gun. The entire sequence is weird and obvious to setup a moment of conflict that probably could’ve been done smarter to get to that conflict.
This is the kind film that will pop up on Netflix or Prime and people will watch wondering where it’s going. It’s very much a well-produced low budget flick that leans on the shot composition and photography. Overall it does a decent job trying not to look like a low budget flick as it goes on you see all the cheats. There is one scene where a dead character blinks a couple of times and I wonder how they missed that and kept the take.
Anyways, ECCO was a nice film to see on the big screen simply for that lighting and shot comp + photography. But the story is lacking when all said and done. This would totally be the kind of film I’d see at Juggernaut Film Fest now that they’ve started showing feature films.
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