vinnymex9 Dear Zak ForsmanYour movie in the beginning gave me some kind of excitement that I haven't felt in a long time. Where mans movie is kind of revive in your trailer. I watch the film, and I read everybody else comments of your movie, and all I got to say is screw them. I would like to see those who thought your film suck, make something visually. I think you put as much you can to make this film awesome; though visually, the making of the film, and your two actor who I felt worthy on the acting John T. Woods, and Ross Marquand is what really made the film. I'm sorry but your actress that looks Mexican just didn't do justice on the accent, and that's including the drug-lord. Overall, I would like to know more of this character in the future, maybe a trilogy? Why not, I thought Mr. Woods kick ass.Love the movie Benny.

Justin Berkovi There are thing in life where if you know, you know. Those that 'know'in this case will understand the influences and subtle homages as well as appreciate the originality of 'Down and Dangerous'. For me I see a lot of Michael Mann here but also comparisons with John Woo's early Hong Kong cinema. Brooding characters, a single frame being able to capture so much emotion and resonance. In one scene a drug deal is being discussed, the camera moves to a close up of one of the characters and immediately I see a scene in 'Heat' where Waingrow is brought in to assist Van Sant. This is not a bad thing.Where 'Down and Dangerous' shines is being respectful of it's influences but also passionately original in it's execution and spirit.One late night a few weeks ago I was on my own, laptop perched on the duvet and wondering what on earth I could do to pass a couple of hours of my time. 'Down...' had just come into iTunes and after a quick Google search I was hesistant - a film funded on Kickstarter? But nonetheless the trailer had me intrigued.Just over 1.5 hours later I was buzzing after being totally engrossed in this film. It's not a brilliant low budget kickstarter funded film, it's a brilliant and inspired feature film.The characters are brilliant - the director does a fantastic job of getting all the nuances right. John T Woods has a real charm about him and turns in a memorable performance here - I expect this will lead to a great career. He is very watchable.The atmosphere, the music, the characters - I loved all of it. It reminded me of so many of my favourite films but also was unique. It's a classic!

lucius_420 I went into the viewing not sure what to expect from the other reviews here, but whenever I see a movie that is written and directed by the same guy it sparks my interest so I gave it a chance and was very pleasantly surprised at how very good it is. Definitely the trailer helped to suck me in and I was very glad that the music from the trailer was actually in the movie as well. There have been some big budget films lately that had a great song on the trailer but then that music was nowhere to be found in the movie itself. The music is amazingly good futuristic techno, comforting when it needs to be and exciting when appropriate, reminds me of Daft Punk's soundtrack for the Tron: Legacy movie. If you want to actually compare this to million dollar budget movies, I think this could give some of them a run for their money. I was definitely far more entertained by this film than I was when I watched Ridley Scott's horrendous movie "The Counselor" which I was completely bored by. That film had great actors but the writing was very dull and did not appeal to my need for action. The very short sequences of action in that were designed to cater to our sadistic nature, which has shock value but is poor in taste, whereas in Down and Dangerous the excitement is built by the music and very good writing. I could not say enough about the writing, it was brilliant.It is true there weren't very many conversations with the main character's friend who sits in jail but they're both smart guys, there isn't too much they need to say to each other even though I think I would have tried to build up the background to their relationship a little bit more since there are some unanswered questions left hanging in the air. Who is this guy and what is their connection to each other if they are both independent of anyone? It is a minor oversight that is insignificant compared to the bigger picture. The directing was good (although there was one sleeper hold sequence that looked just a few seconds too short to be believable, primarily everything was impeccably done) and the actors all did their jobs quite well. There were a few scenes where it seemed as though they were shooting on a digital camera that isn't as expensive as the super fancy ones, just slightly grainy, but it is so nice to watch a movie that is not completely done on green screens and all you ever see for two hours is the actors' faces. It feels more real when they are actually shooting video on a street or in a hotel. I saw another reviewer say they had a difficult time rooting for the anti-hero because he was in their eyes "poisoning people" but as for me, being a thinking person I liked the main character because he was a thinking person's anti-hero and his way of beating the bad guys is to outwit them using his smarts which he does so well that I was in tears at the end not because the acting was good, which it was, but because the writing was so great. It was like feeding a fresh bloody carcass to a ravenous wolf that hungers for better screen writing in movies than the romantic comedy type movies that have infected and destroyed the action genre I used to love so much. Okay, so the guy smuggled some coke across the border, okay he smuggled a lot of coke, but he never sold it to little kids and he wasn't like Rambo blowing apart the arms and legs of a hundred guys with a machine gun feeding our sadistic side, in fact the hero of this movie doesn't like to use guns on people at all ever even though he will shoot some drugs if he is forced to showing again his humanity and that he cares more for the girl than the drugs.This movie really does fit right in with all the big Hollywood movies because they have something in common. In classical theatre, there is always a tragic ending, some moral or fate that can't be escaped. However the majority of movies these days all have a happy ending where the guy gets the girl the bad guys lose and they get to keep the money and live happily ever after the end. Of course I'm a romantic so I love the happy ever after stuff too even though that wars against my purist side that demands every hero should die at the end of the film or at least end up broke. It is true though that stranger tales have been made in real life where people steal huge sums of money and commit genocide and get away with it. Overall I think this movie was really very good and I will recommend it to my friends and most likely watch it again. I will also be looking for the soundtrack which I loved.

Matt Leiberman I wanted to like this movie. I backed it on Kickstarter and I've been rooting for it very much for almost two years. But there's no way around the fact that the movie is lame. Its a made-for-TV B- film.I want to be as positive as I can be so I'm happy to say there are some good performances in the film. Judd Nelson isn't one of them. The guy really really hammy. While I was watching the film it was hard not to snicker and say "Hey, John Bender really did go to prison!" On further thought maybe he's more like a boring version of Jack Peretti in New Jack City. Irregardless, he's just a puffy stereotype of the roles he played in the 1980's.John T. Woods and Ross Marquand deliver solid performances but Paulie Rojas is melodramatic as all get out. Some of the other actors, particularly the clichéd Mexican mobsters, are just cheeseball.The script is really quite awful. I didn't want to say that. I really wanted to like it! I kept forcing myself to say "well, for a low budget movie this isn't so bad!" but that's just not true. The more I thought about the film the more cheesy it became. The name of the movie sounds like a John Candy movie, the tagline makes no sense and the entire film plays like a low rent version of Blow. The most important part is that there is simply no way to make a drug dealer a good guy. I wanted to believe otherwise but it don't work. I spoke with three other people who saw the film and they all said the same thing. How do you root for someone who poisons people?Like I said, I wanted to believe in the film. I really did. I ignored the misleading trailer (which has quotes from its own backers and writers pretending they're critics. Thats just tacky), the cheeseball title and all the rest hoping there was a great movie buried in the tacky 80's packaging. But it isn't there. Its just very meh.