The Aggression Scale
Director: Steven C. Miller
Writer: Ben Powell
Cast: Ryan Hartwig, Fabianne Therese, Dana Ashbrook, Derek Mears, Jacob Reynolds, Ray Wise
Part of: /slash Filmfestival

Plot:
When mob-boss Bellavance (Ray Wise) is released on bail, he discovers that somebody stole 500.000$ from him – money he now needs to skip the country. So he sends out his right-hand man Lloyd (Dana Ashbrook) to track it down. Lloyd’s search leads him and his team to the Rutledges. But Own (Ryan Hartwig) has his own backstory and to protect his step-sister Lauren (Fabienne Therese), he goes to war with the henchmen.

The Aggression Scale has good pacing and draws you in, but I had too many issues with the movie to be able to say that I liked it.

Here are the issues I had with the film: First of all, I wasn’t sure if it didn’t portray the violence too much as a solution for my taste (much as with God Bless America). Owen was generally a problematic character – which was perfectly alright, violent teenagers are problematic – but he won just too much, making his methods seem as a good way to deal with things – which they aren’t.

Second issue I had was Lauren. She was supremely annoying, I wanted to kick her all of the time. She isn’t actually that incompetent and she gets in some nice defence moves, but inbetween all she does is sob and scream and wait around passively until Owen kicks her into gear. Gah.

Third issue I had was the camera work. It drove me a bit insane. Another instance of dammit-get-a-tripod-and-stop-this-freaking-shaking-or-I-might-barf-or-strangle-you.

Despite these issues I had and the rather foreseeable plot, the movie at least managed to never lose my interest. I’m quite surprised by that myself, but I have to credit the pacing for that – it was just really spot-on. Nevertheless, it’s not enough for me to really recommend the film.

Summarising: you can skip it.