Sleight (2017) Review

Sleight is the 2017 drama film directed and written by J.D Dillard and also Alex Theurer, and starring Jacob Latimore and Seychelle Gabriel.

Plot
Bo, a young magician and electrical engineering major, is left with his little sister to take care of after their parents' death. Bo has turned to drug dealing in order to survive. He meets a beautiful young woman. Bo has to find a way to escape a life of drugs and gangs and live a happy life with his sister and his love interest.

Positives
I like the film's grounded approach, especially the way they make Bo's "powers" work is really interesting. One of the most interesting things about this film is that they make it look like superpowers but it's not.

I appreciate this movie for trying to do something different.

I was a bit impressed on what they did here on a $250,000 budget. Keep in mind, this is not a big budget film with millions of dollars of investment into it. You will notice that there were budget constraints on a few scenes, but overall, I enjoyed the film relative to how much they spent on this movie.

I also liked Jacob Latimore's performance in this movie. He did a decent job portraying a character who is struggling to live a life outside of drugs and gang activity for love.

Negatives
One of the biggest issues I noticed was the movie's pacing. It really dragged on for the whole second act. There were moments where I was waiting for something interesting to happen and not much interesting things happens in the film. I think the script could have been cleaned up a bit to make it more concise. Because of this pacing problem, I think it made half of the film kinda boring.

The character composition needed some work. I didn't feel much connection to Bo or Molly, his girlfriend. There wasn't much chemistry to Bo and any of the other characters. I think if they tightened up the composition of the characters and their chemistry between them, that would have made the film stronger.

The ending was not good in my opinion. I wasn't satisfied with the ending. I'm not going to spoil what happens, but I think they could have revamped the script to make a more "satisfactory" ending. It's not a bad ending, but it could have had more closure.

Conclusion
Despite its problems, this movie is decent and I enjoyed it for what it is. It's not a superhero popcorn thriller. It's not even a big-budget AAA movie that a lot of people may go in thinking it will be. This movie may appeal to those who are looking for something different. I can see somebody being disappointed because they expected some more flash in its cinematic presentation or they expected it to be more "fun". This movie is a mixed bag is the best way I would put it.

Score: C+