Inside a Change Movie Review

On July 30, 2009, I was able to take part in the world premiere of the eagerly anticipated Inside A Change, a new independent feature film written and directed by Rik Cordero. It premiered at the New York International Latino Film Festival in New York City. The marketing campaign for this film was unlike any other independent film as the cyber-world received consistent updates and reminders from Three/21 Films, the production company behind the making of the film. A promotional SUV, masked with images from the film, cruised around the New York City area, creating tremendous buzz leading up to their world premiere. The hype machine for this movie rivaled that of the ones created for major Hollywood studio pictures. However, this small film didn't live up to the hype.

Ephraim Benton plays Chris Price, a young street hustler, who is about to serve six months in prison for a first-time offense when his mother Lyn (Karen Chilton) invites him home for her birthday. He ties up a few lose ends on his way back home, only to find his younger brother following in his footsteps and his older brother disowning him. Now, on his last night of freedom, he re-examines his life and must find a way to bring his family together before it is too late.

With this debut feature film, Rik Cordero exemplifies tremendous competence in working with actors, a trait lacking amongst most music video directors turned feature film directors. Ephraim Benton gives a subtly strong performance as Chris and shows he is more than capable of being a lead actor, after years of playing minor roles in plenty of major Hollywood films. Benton's performance was only lifted by the strength of the supporting cast, mainly that of Karen Chilton and Donté Bonner who plays his older brother.

This is a testament to the actors because the writing of Inside just couldn't take it to the next level of high quality independent filmmaking. Chris Price was a bit too sympathetic, only once portraying a character trait, in a flashback, which would show us his ability to be a criminal in the first place. Speaking of flashbacks, we were bombarded by them, seeing Chris's life leading to a life of crime only through flashbacks, which felt more like a back-up story to the limited and unsatisfying present day story already being told.

The story lacked drama and conflict. I assumed Chris's inner conflicts were present, considering his dilemma, but we never saw it and are left to speculate. What little conflict we could see was limited at the personal level, as we watched Chris engage with the people in his life, and even that felt glossed over and superficial, mired in oftentimes lengthy monologue-like dialogue.

This slow moving, pretentious film felt anticlimactic and uneventful, leaving me in disbelief that the easy steps taken in the end by Chris to bring his family together would be at all effective. It's ironic how the film is called "Inside A Change," leaving me to question where did this "change" actually occur. Chris was the same person at the top of the film as he was in the end.

Also, I loathed the overly washed out colors and some of the camera angles in the cinematography and the editing was choppy.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this film a 4.

At the Q&A, as Rik Cordero finished explaining his four year work process behind the development of his film, his co-producer Nancy Mitchell chimes in to make it clear to us that he wrote the script and they produced the film in a matter of two weeks. I know she meant to impress the hyped-up audience members at the New York International Latino Film Festival, where they went on to win Best Film. However, I thought that was something she shouldn't have revealed because Inside A Change sure felt like it was rushed.