Film review: Strong leads and a striking urban-industrial look make B.C.-shot Chained worth checking out
Filmed in an unrecognizable Kelowna, it’s an unexpected mashup of coming-of-age story and crime-thriller
Chained is now available to stream across Canada on VOD platforms.
VANCOUVER DIRECTOR TITUS Heckel shows striking gritty style in Chained, a BC-shot feature driven by its two strong leads.
Filmed in an utterly unrecognizable Kelowna (which masquerades as a fictional city in Michigan), the unusual mix of coming-of-age story and crime thriller inhabits a world of abandoned industrial warehouses and overgrown community gardens set in the shells of dilapidated buildings.
There’s energy to the editing, too, as the film follows young Taylor (Marlon Kazadi), a 13-year-old boy dealing with abuse from both his father at home and bullies at school. His only respite is that aforementioned garden plot, where he tries to nurture vegetables with his would-be girlfriend (Leia Madu) and dreams of becoming an organic farmer. (Kids these days!)
The plot revs up when Taylor stumbles across Jim (Aleks Paunovic), a criminal who’s been left chained, next to a corpse, inside an abandoned warehouse. Paunovic and Kazadi build considerable chemistry, forming a strange bond; hardened but seemingly good-hearted Jim counsels the teen on fighting off bullies, but isn’t quite as helpful with girls. (“I don’t think anyone really knows anything about girls.”) Still, Jim remains chained like an animal, and the film’s big theme becomes control—the loss of it when you’re caught in a cycle of abuse, the allure of it when you’re not used to having it.
In over his head, and driven by a desire to escape his life, Taylor starts to realize threats and violence may help him get his hands on Jim’s stash of money.
It’s a compelling character study by a young actor who’s authentic and unaffected as he weighs his choices. You can almost see Taylor’s overtaxed adolescent brain wavering between right and wrong in front of you as he negotiates with Jim. Elsewhere, some of his most nuanced work comes in his interactions at home, where his father demands he live up to old codes of masculinity (“Say it!” “I’m a rock,” Kazidi says half-heartedly). Meanwhile, Taylor’s pregnant stepmother tries to warm up to him with caramel popcorn and wrestling on TV, but has no idea who Taylor really is.
Some of the side characters are less well-drawn (the school bullies are too broad), and occasionally their dialogue clunks. And the setup—a half million sitting in a crackhouse safe somewhere—sometimes feels a bit too contrived.
But there’s a lot of promise here, not just in the lead actors and in the eye for urban spaces, but in the bigger, multilevel idea that invisible chains can hold you back just as much as the ones that shackle Jim.
Related Articles
