The Glint of Darkness: Revolution [2021] Review: Clone wars erupt in this mid-length feature debacle

Shaarath Vihari’s “The Glint of Darkness: Revolution” is only 51 minutes long. This means that, traditionally, an action-thriller could pack a tight punch in a mid-length feature-length like this one. However, neither does Vihari (who wrote, directed, produced, and acted in the film) have any sense of urgency nor does he understand that a short runtime doesn’t necessarily ensure success.

To get you a clue of what you are in for with the film, let’s take an example of those films from Philipines that have plagued the action sub-genre as of late. These films essentially don’t believe in anything resembling a film. They are basically videos made to look like films. To put it simply, they are movies with one-line ideas that inherently establish it within the first 10 minutes, and then the rest of it is like a big chase sequence that doesn’t seem to end.

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What Vihari does with his film is something similar. The film opens with the confession of Hina Sidiqqui (Arshiya Gul), an investigative journalist who has stumbled on some shady findings of cloning and mind-control experiments being conducted on people who are a threat. Noah Black (played by Vihari himself) is a rougue-assasin who has uncovered some important secrets of this said organization and wants to help Hina out with her story. Since Hina is found dead in her apartment and Noah is supposedly declared dead, it is upon Nick and Shasha – Hina’a colleagues to keep the hard-drive containing secretes safe.

While it sounds dramatically fascinating as I pen it down, Vihari establishes the aforementioned plot in a total of 5 minutes. With expositionary dialogues that feel like they are said by someone standing behind the camera accompanied by clumsy filmmaking techniques, Vihari manages to give this film a certain backdrop. But sadly, everything else is just incredibly outdated and dumb.

To begin with, the film is shot entirely in monochrome. According to Vihari himself, the black and white atmosphere is procured to create dread, with a fear of darkness taking over the world. Also, since we are at it, the film has zero sense of world-building. I mean, I don’t expect a low-budget film to show me real CGI tricks or futuristic gadgets but it seems like the director isn’t even trying. The lighting here is just downright bad. The hand-held camera doesn’t compliment it either. Look for the sequences that are shot during the night. They are so oddly out of focus that you seem to almost forget that people are on the run in the film.

Also, Read – Silence and Darkness (2020) Review: Atmospheric thriller packs a punch

To add to the misery of the viewer, Vihari adds a loud, out-of-place soundtrack that never (read: never) accompanies the action that’s going on. Talking about the action, it again feels lazy and insipid. A few camera tricks to make the clones fight with each other work. But then again, they are the least bit investing. The acting is wooden and the characters are as shallow as the potholes that appear out of nowhere on Indian roads.

The only good thing that I can say about this independently produced film is that it doesn’t lack ambition. Sadly, it doesn’t have the tools or the sense of how it can be what it wants to be.

★

Trailer

The Glint of Darkness: Revolution Links – Vimeo, IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes