Though it knocks along with the steady heartbeat pace of a thriller and is painted in the languid, low-contrast shadows of a noir, Paul Krik's feature debut is neither and both. Mixing genres, stereotypes, and bug-eyed conspiracy theories, Able Danger satisfies its own aesthetic demands but has trouble with its bigger concern: tying the noir look to its attendant narrative traditions in the service of some artistic (rather than merely referential) effect. Thomas Flynn (Adam Nee) runs the Vox Pop café in deepest hipster Brooklyn, and either too much coffee or too few customers have led him to pen a book claiming that Mohamed Atta was a government patsy. The publicity for his book draws in a mysterious Eurobabe (Elina Löwensohn) who claims she has proof of CIA involvement in 9/11. Bodies begin dropping around her almost immediately—the first being that of Thomas's friend—and a torrent of G-men, Germans, Arabs, Tasers, text messages, tech nerds, and messenger bags is unleashed. Able Danger's various generic elements and ambitions, while successful on their own, resist melding into a successful pastiche; perhaps the invocation of September 11 for the vaguely satirical purpose of tweaking conspiracy crap like that found in Zeitgeist: The Movie (an Internet film that, like Krik's recent "Be Kanye" ads, went mega-viral last year) proves too preoccupying for such a winking, if well-made, film.
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American Combatant 09/17/2008 7:24:17 PM
a few more reviews ABLE DANGER - The Critics "NOIR ON ACID" Jeannette Catsoulis NY TIMES http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/movies/11able.html "Able Danger is a slick debut feature. An update of The Parallax View. A cinematic x-ray of paranoid mindset. In the long shadow of noir pastiche, complete with a femme-fatale turn by Elina Löwensohn" FILM COMMENT MAGAZINE "Paul Krik's stylish, darkly comic conspiracy thriller takes its title from a classified military program alleged to have identified four 9/11 hijackers prior to the terrorist attacks, and borrows its gleaming B&W look from THE MALTESE FALCON. The film is gorgeously photographed, briskly paced and strikingly handsome despite an indie-sized budget." Ken Fox TV GUIDE http://movies.tvguide.com/able-danger/review/295289 "Surprisingly entertaining zero-budget film noir that effectively mixes pseudo-Hitchcockian theatrics with a hefty dose of contemporary lefty paranoia." NEW YORK MAGAZINE *Critic's Pick* Sara Cardace http://nymag.com/listings/movie/able-danger/ "Krik uses flashes of dark comedy, an affection for the film noir genre and the perfect eyebrow-half-cocked attitude towards his subject matter to create a fast-paced and entertaining story... With its black-and-white cinematography and visual imagination (the film mixes in color dream sequences and text-overwritten surveillance footage)... Krik's low-fi riff on the conspiracy thriller has a charm all its own" Scott Macaulay FILMMAKER MAGAZINE http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2008/02/rotterdam-able-danger.php "Krik references film noir, rustling up some heavies and hardboiled patter here and there. Ironically, the connection is intriguing, given the wartime stew of anxieties that originally fostered the movies that came to be known as noir; Krikıs two main riffstones come from either end of the lineage, The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955)." Nicolas Rapoid THE L MAGAZINE http://thelmagazine.com/print.cfm?content_id=4462 "Mildly surreal, mostly black-and-white homage to film noir, set in the built-in ironic enclave of hipster Brooklyn. Able Danger is a smart and all-too-conceivable conspiracy thriller that raises serious questions in less-than-serious ways. Do we really think we know the entire truth behind 9/11? If so, the movie shows a bridge it might want to sell youŠ" Frank Lovece THE FILM JOURNAL http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_conte nt_id=1003849095 "Paul Krikıs low-budget indie thriller Able Danger is nicely shot in tinted b&w hi-def video, slickly mixed, scored and edited almost to the point of being indistinguishable from this or that Bruckheimer TV show. And Krik is a keen film student: Many of the filmıs images recall Welles, Lang, Fuller, Mann, Kubrick, Frankenheimer you name it." Steven Boone SPOUT http://blog.spout.com/2008/09/12/911-conspiracy-movie-for-hi/ "Shot in a high contrast black-and-white that milks maximum atmospheric effect out of its wide, busy compositions and chiaroscuro lighting..." Brandon Harris HAMMER TO NAIL http://www.hammertonail.com/?p=363 "Shot in black and white and reminiscent of classic '30s noir films, Able Danger tracks a Brooklyn bookstore owner (based on the owner of Vox Pop) and a European femme fatal over bridges and on bikes in the dangerous search for 9/11 truth." Robyn Hillman-Harrigan FLAVORPILL http://flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2008/9/11/abel-danger