Paintball (2009) starring Brendan Mackey, Jennifer Matter, Patrick Regis, Iaione Perez, Neil Maskell directed by Daniel Benmayor Movie Review

Paintball (2009)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Paintball (2009)

Something About Watching Paint Dry

Advertised as the ultimate in paintball excitement a group of strangers fly to Europe where they are taken blindfolded and handcuffed deep into a large forest where they have 24 hours to complete their mission against a group of fellow thrill seekers. But someone has different ideas as the leader is shot at with live ammo and now what was meant be entertainment turns in to a fight to survive as not only do they have to deal with someone trying to kill them but each other as they start to turn on each other.

I've done paintball twice and as someone raised on war movies it was a brilliant experience, a chance to re-enact my childhood fantasies and to learn that even being hit by a paint pellet is flipping painful especially on a frosty autumnal morning. And if I think about the sport of paintballing it would make for a good horror movie if a group came up against a Rambo like character using real ammo to take them down one by one. The tension which would build between people over what to do and who gets what supplies whilst the fear of dying a grizzly death lurks in the air would be horrifying.

That brings me to the low budget movie "Paintball" which quite simply tries to bring to the screen everything I just mentioned, that sense of fear combined with not being sure who you can trust whilst dodging live rounds. But unfortunately it is low budget and the acting, camera work and effects don't bring to life the concept and it becomes a battle to keep on watching due to the low budget feel which really fails to capitalize on the mystery of who is using the live rounds. And that is it, we watch strangers shout at each other, die and then repeat which is not exciting at all.

What this all boils down to is as an idea "Paintball" the movie works but as a final product it comes up seriously short due to the low budget which stops it from having the atmosphere, look and moments of horror to make it attention grabbing.


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