5lbs of Pressure

A sad tale of small-world crime, drug, revenge, drama and father's love and redemption. From beginning to end, there's brutality, sadness, throat-clamping situations and some very intense moments whether emotional or heart-breaking in a brutal way. The character of Luke Evans deserved better, and the way the movie finished just doubled the sadness that's scattered throughout like deadly white powders. Screenplay/storyline/plots: 5.5 Development: 7 Realism: 7 Entertainment: 6 Acting: 7.5 Filming/photography/cinematography: 7 VFX/CGI: 7.5 Music/score/sound: 7 Depth: 6 Logic: 5 Flow: 6 Crime/romance/thriller/drama: 6 Ending: 6.

After 13 years in prison and three years at a halfway house Adam DeSalvo (Luke Evans) returns to his old neighborhood where no one wants him. He gets a job bartending at the Mirror Bar. His wife (Stephanie Leonidas) doesn't want him around and his son Jimmy (Rudy Pankow) doesn't know he exists. A subplot involves Mike (Rory Culkin) who works for his drug-dealing uncle. Mike wants to leave the business and play music in Austin or Nashville but needs money to leave town. He plays with the brother of the guy that Adam murdered and he wants revenge. It was odd that Jimmy never knew his father was in prison. You would think the parents of the other kids in school would know, and tell their kids, who would tell Jimmy. That never happened. Going back to the old neighborhood where you killed a man is also stupid, especially when he has family. Several plot points didn't pass the smell test. This was a drama and not much of a crime-thriller. The soundtrack could have been better and the ending sucked as the film dragged on too long. The title comes from the amount of pressure it takes to pull a trigger. Guide: No sex or nudity.

Initially looking like another redemption story, and other secondary characters crossing paths. Possibly even hinting some upcoming action scene Unfortunately nothing happened. Almost 2 hours of characters struggling to tell their stories and how they want to get far from their demons, but as time passes by you start feeling it's goin to be a fraud. And it's exactly that. Could have skipped majority of the 2nd hour and just leave the last 5 minutes and would have been the same. Or even better as you would get one hour back. Acting is sort of ok but it's a shame they could not be used in a better way.

Poor acting. I would say everyone in this film does some pretty bad acting except Luke Evans, but even his character had the stereotypical Brooklyn accent and solemn tone. Some cliché scenes like the AA meeting where someone speaks to the group, then guess who speaks next - Luke Evans. The son looks like he's 30 but plays a character that I think is supposed to be around 17. (His mom says he's "impressionable", so that makes me think teens.) In one scene Adam (Luke Evans) says to his son that he was his age when he committed a murder. We know he was in jail for 16 years, so that would put Adam at around 33 years old, however Luke Adams is 44, and to me he looks like he's in his 50s in this film. The drug dealer uncle, sitting at his desk in an auto repair shop with a safe on the desk is pretty lame. All the dim lighting is cliché of the seedy drug underworld. The Jamaican accent of the female drug dealer isn't very good, not a genuine accent. I can never understand why casting can't cast actors with genuine accents, especially for accents that so many of us are familiar with. The film takes a long time to get to the real story, it was probably in the last quarter of the film that I realized where it was going. I prefer to know in the first quarter what the film is about and let it unfold from there. I wanted to stop watching it many times but was too invested to stop so I let it play, probably skipped ahead a couple times.

5lb of Pressure is captivating and draws you in slowly and brings it all together with deep character driven performances. You easily find yourself rooting for everyone to find their place. Shot beautifully in tones that remind you of a past time of black & white or sepia, but the true colors of the grit of the 'any neighborhood' we all can remember shines through. It's so nostalgic of a Brooklyn I remember well, yet the neighborhood was not so recognizable. It kept me entranced and looking for a familiar place because the story was so real. Thank you Phil Allocco and your crew for your wonderful story and film.