The New Republic (2011) User Reviews

I was stunned at how good it was

[mike-ryan455 · 7/10 · 22 November 2013]

I looked at this from two perspectives. The first was to compare it against a drama made with a normal multimillion dollar Hollywood budget. It did pretty good. I'd give it a fair six out of ten. It had a good story, passable acting, didn't do anything stupidly wrong or offensive and was generally quite interesting and enjoyable.

Then I considered that it was made for a hundredth of what even a SyFy Channel super cheapie TV movie is made for, a thousandth of what a cheap Hollywood movie like Footloose was made for and one ten thousandth of the budget of a true Hollywood blockbuster turkey like "The Lone Ranger." The New Republic had imagination. It had a good script about a slightly more totalitarian country than ours and it showed that country with very little. It kept you going as our character was sucked away by it.

Was it perfect? No. Was it great? No. It would be about a decent six stars out of ten. But that's not bad - especially when it took $150,000,000 for Mars Needs Moms just to eek out their five stars.

Entertaining

[ericnottelling · 7/10 · 21 November 2013]

I stumbled on this movie over the weekend and checked it out. I noticed it was shot for $25,000 and I really like low budget films. Primer was an awesome film so was Travelling Salesman. So I figured I'd give this one a shot. The first thing I noticed is how well this was shot. It is done in very good quality. They put a lot of work and effort into the scenes. On a limited budget the way it was shot you have a hard time telling they are using the same locations over and over. They mask it really well. The acting is very good, for the most part. There are a few duds but they are set back by stronger characters. The main did a really good job so did his friend. The writing is done well with some witty commentary, and the story lays it self out well. It holds some very good suspense and you are left wondering what is going on up until the end. While the dialog isn't as strong as traveling salesman, I think the way in which it is shot, with the camera angles it builds some nice tension. Although some of the scenes seem pointless and there are some plot holes. For that reason I give it a 7/10. Great film for something neat to watch that isn't all Hollywood. The voice overs in a fight club manner make it interesting and surely quotable. It won't win story of the year, but it's a fun flick to watch.

Likable flick!

[cekadah · 7/10 · 21 February 2016]

A big story accomplished on a little budget. There is a constant mystery and suspense throughout the movie. I was very taken with the quest to decipher just who is the villain and which direction the story was going. The actual plot was confusing at times but then when you think you have figured it out a turn happens and our hero David seems to be thrown right back to square one.

The setting is in and undefined near future but if you pay attention it's also a comment on our present time and which direction it's going. The political leaders, the police, federal agents, and underworld characters look just a bit too current. David is a frustrated journalist and decides to create his own website, this quickly becomes trouble for him. And how like is that for today? There are innocents now incarcerated because they wanted to speak out and have been quieted by 'the authorities'. Barrett Brown comes to mind.

This isn't a big first class picture and the story is better than most of acting but altogether it works very well.

EMPATHY MEANS NOTHING IN THE REAL WORLD

[nogodnomasters · 6/10 · 21 October 2018]

David (Owen Beckman) has a dry sarcastic wit that enables him to write for anarchist publications and to bore his audience with truism while speaking in a monotone. The scene takes place in the near future. A section of Los Angeles is fenced off and locked down after dark as a way of preventing crime into the outer communities. This New LA is where David has chosen to live and write. The governor of California is named Kane (Kathy Christopherson) sounds like Cain, and is the face of this new lock down. This is sold to the people as being good, so they can rebuild this inner city community, all the while ignoring it.

David is recruited by a group of people who are anarchists, but consider themselves Nationist, and don't want to be called anarchists apparently a tribute to Orwell. They want David to write for them so they can make the struggling people of New LA believe they are in reality prisoners, something they apparently can't do for themselves.

I found Davids writings to be tiresome. One example is when he quotes Poe, "Dream within a dream" and then attempts to make something technical of a poetic concept by saying, "What if you don't sleep? A flashback within a flashback?" One can look at this two ways. This is either poor script writing, or good script writing as an attempt to establish David's character. Either way it was tiresome to listen to these observations droned through out the film as a substitution for using a well developed plot to establish theme. The plot was twisty as we never knew what side David was on as he played on both sides, seemingly never committing to either one. So yes, the plot was clever as a focus on David and might have been a better film had it left off the commentary of society having to chose stability or privacy without thinking we can have both.

Parental Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.