Review of Razor Eaters

Introduction

Oz`s Shannon Young, the director of `Razor Eaters`, made his first foray into amateur moviemaking with one James Wan in 2000. And while Wan would go on to bigger and better things - namely directing `Saw` just four years later, Young has still to shift out of the no-budget, guerilla filmmaking style.

Set in and around Melbourne and based on a real life gang of urban terrorists that plagued the city, `Razor Eaters` follows the exploits of a group of young men with the delusion of being vigilantes, as they stage home invasions of the rich, beat up drug-dealers, steal from underground arms dealers and even accost tailgaters in the middle of the night, all the while becoming a minor news sensation thanks to their decision to capture their efforts on tape. Paul Moder, a minor Australian actor also credited as producer, plays the detective tasked with bringing them in.

Video

A 4:3 full-frame transfer, `Razor Eaters` is a fugly looking piece. While there`s an argument for the authenticity of home-recorded footage looking rather dismal, it looks here like it was captured on a mid-range mobile phone with a video-capture function; grainy and pixellated with little distinction in the palette. The actual `proper` footage shot away from the gang doesn`t fare much better, with a high level of noise, blurring and some real issues with compression artefacts, the blacks so shallow you can pick out the pixels. Despite being filmed in 2003 and set in 2001, the whole piece looks about 20 years older than it is, and you`ll catch repeats of `Bergerac` on UK Gold which look better, more contemporary, than this.

Audio

Options for Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1, both tracks, but more so the surround, are best described as loud. Of course, the dialogue can be so hushed in the mix that you`re forced to turn the volume way up, which would account for that. The surround track is very centre-focused with occasional steering the rears, and to be fair, isn`t too bad for a low-budget piece. On the other hand, there are issues with a/v synching (from the master, so present on both tracks) at various points in the feature, and the Foley work and spot effects are often terrible.

Features

Leave it to the amateurs to dish up some decent bonus material.

The first in the two disc set which houses the feature also contains two commentary tracks, one from the director and another from the cast. As you`d expect, the director yak-track is more technically minded, and the cast track is a casual, friendly affair as the stars reminisce and indulge in a spot of back-slapping. There`s also a selection of deleted scenes, most in workprint format, although running in at 40-minutes, you`d have to be a real fan to sit through them all. A fairly comprehensive `making of` runs for about 75-minutes, while a look at the special effects comes to a close after about two. Fletcher Humphrys, one the film`s cast, wandered about on set with his own camcorder during the shoot, and his backstage footage is presented in a dull video diary segment which lasts about 40-minutes. There`s also a horrific amateur music video, in which an equally horrific band of Rammstein-wannabes perform what could loosely be described as music.

Conclusion

A film of two distinct halves - the deeds of the Razor Eaters captured in faux-documentary style, and the ensuing work of the police to catch them - `Razor Eaters` isn`t a particularly interesting film. Its mockumentary motif is well past old, and the attempts at some sort of social commentary are wide of the mark, thanks in part to a script that manages to combine vigilantism with murder, but fails to distinguish between the two. It does pack in enough mild humour in its running time to stop it from being an entirely miserable watch, but none of the characters are engaging - despite some decent enough performances - and Young`s direction is often, as you would expect, sloppy. Moder`s scenes set prior, during and after the gang`s activities as the cop on their trail, become muddled as to when they`re supposed to be transpiring, and the whole film suffers from the amateurish look and feel Young has cooked up. With a little more structure in its narrative, some better production values (some of the FX are downright nasty), and by kicking the doc-format to the kerb, `Razor Eaters` could have been a more interesting prospect.