Written and directed by Gerard Lough, a Private Investigator is sent to Florence, Italy to find a woman who mysteriously vanished there. He soon finds himself tangled in a web of obsession and revenge. Starring: Aidan O’Sullivan, Bobby Calloway, Nigel Brennan, Michael Parle, Yalda Shahidi, Rebecca Rose Flynn and Thomas Sharkey.
Making a crime thriller, set across many different locations with a lot of moving pieces, is an incredibly tough challenge to give yourself, especially for an independent project but Gerard Lough decided to go all in. Kicking things off with a nicely sinister note as it travels into the criminal underworld, filled with scammers and con artists.
Tonally, it manages to keep that going well throughout and the story works well too, pitting tricksters against one another to find out who’ll get the last laugh. Although there’s a fairly limited introduction to the characters, it might have helped to grasp your attention more firmly if it gave some additional background.
While the pieces of the story go together well, the pacing and progression do hold it back somewhat. It moves quite slowly, with a lot of establishing shots which can tend to throw off the focus. Coming in at just over two hours, it was perhaps too lofty of a goal to fill all of that time and keep a strong grip on the audience. It’s missing a more effective flow to its story to allow the twists and turns of its tale to hit stronger notes.
However, it does have a good grasp on the realm of reality and limitations when it comes to the visual, not trying to stretch itself too thin. Those clever choices help to keep its feet on the ground, to not push the atmosphere into convoluted territory and hold onto an intimate touch. Some shots are better than others with the occasional overly close framing and some lingering longer than they needed to.
That understated nature is matched by the performances from the entire ensemble. They don’t fall into the trap of melodrama and or attempt to be overtly sinister. Each of them capture that devious and underhanded nature in their own way, and it does feel like a group effort, none of them stand above the rest. The split of screen time also works quite well, they each get their moment and it never feels unbalanced.
Spears is an understated, slow-burn crime thriller, clever enough not to overplay its hand but needed to quicken the pacing and take a sharper hand to its editing, to really pack a punch. Gerard Lough set himself an extremely difficult challenge with this film and while it does have its weaknesses and is a bit liberal with the runtime, it has a solid foundation and a well thought out story.
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