Delivered (2011)

Directed by Michael Madison
Starring Michael Madison and Jeanette Steiner
Runtime 89min. - Not Rated (Intended For Adults)
3 Stars (out of 4)

"Delivered" is available as a 72hr rental for $2.99 on YouTube.
Also available as a 7 day rental for $1.99 on Amazon Instant

"Delivered" isn't the best movie I've ever seen, but it shows a remarkable amount of creativity and talent. This is especially true if you consider this is only Michael Madison's second outing as director and was made on a meager budget. I've seen a lot of good indies recently, but most have been dramas or romantic comedies. It takes some real ambition and a lot of guts to make an action-thriller without funding from a big studio. The product of that ambition is a movie that has a few shortcomings, but is satisfying in the end.



Most of what I don't like about the film happens in the first act. The tale begins with a short combat scene where our protagonist, Shane (Madison), takes a bullet. After being wounded, he comes back home and has difficulty adjusting to civilian life. This all makes sense in the context of the story, but it's filmed a bit like a "Lifetime Original" movie. It lacks the energy promised by its promotional material.

If you make it through the initial doldrums, the film shifts dramatically in the right direction. It turns out that Shane is looking for some quick money to help out his mom. Given his military experience and ownership of a classic Mustang, he's well qualified to be a courier for organized criminals. Luckily, there's a criminal in town with an opening.

The job pays well and it's pretty easy. Shane does mostly mundane transports that never put him in danger. He takes his lump of cash and never asks questions. That all changes one day when he fills in for another driver. There's something expensive that needs to be transported and he's told there may be danger involved. He comes prepared with a baseball bat and a pistol.

What he's not prepared for is Cindy (Steiner). He finds her being molested at a low-rent motel. He confronts the offender verbally to no avail. The baseball bat has more luck at stopping the crime. A former high-school baseball star, Shane makes that bat work overtime. The one thing that you need to know about Cindy is that she's beautiful. She also seems pretty open to sex with people she barely knows. Shane should know that something which seems too good to be true probably isn't true, but he's got other things on his mind. A violent encounter leads Shane to the decision that Cindy would be better off alone. He doesn't want to put her in danger. He tries to ditch her, but she's insistent on staying with him. If characters realized they were in a movie they may pick up on these warning signs a little quicker.

Here's one last positive note before I start nitpicking. Jeanette Steiner has a good chance of becoming a star. She's got a great screen presence and lights up a room with her smile. Oh, and she's also a bona fide bombshell. I think she'll be climbing the Hollywood ladder before long.

Madison does a great job with the dialogue and action sequences. His fight scenes are another story altogether. They are choreographed and edited in an oversimplified way. It's something akin to what you might see a teenager post on YouTube. When a punch is thrown the camera angle switches at the moment of impact. In my opinion, it plays out a bit amateurishly on screen.

If you consider the total film from a proper perspective it's quite an enjoyable experience. When you remove studios from the equation (and a few million dollars), you get films that are cooked up from the most basic ingredients. Thus, the quality of the film is based on the freshness of those ingredients. "Delivered" gets its goods from the local farmer's market and it pays off in the end. The company that produced and distributed "Delivered" has made many of its films available on YouTube at awesomely affordable prices. If you've never seen true independent films, the IndieRights YouTube channel is a great place to start.