In the N3rd, Wonder Mill Films second feature film following A Genesis Found, writer/director Benjamin Stark shows us that you can accomplish a well rounded good looking film without a big budget. This movie, even being a thriller at its core, deals with very existentialist topics, which I found refreshing for an entry on the genre. It is not about the jump moments and chases, is about the inner journey of the man behind them, providing a very intimate and introspective feel to it.
Eli (played in a very charming and engaging way by Kevin Maggard) deals with very human issues: he has bills to pay, he wants better for him and his girlfriend Ellie ( played by Rachel Brady which I also liked ), he is an artist working in an Stoneware company while he would prefer to be drawing. You can feel the sense of claustrophobia into his own life reflected very effectively in the coldness of the warehouse he’s forced to be at: the coldness of the stones, the intimidating feel you get from the industrial machines he deals with, everything around him is edgy, cold and isolating.
What does it take for a man to go to go to the extreme? How much do we rely on machines to do our jobs? And this film does a great job answering these questions: both man and machine can break down.
