Lack of good storyline.

How sad is this?

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure, eventually driven to the unimaginable. We witness the terrifying events unfold through daughter Judith's video camera, which subsequently becomes Exhibit A.This film is a slow burning nightmare about real life financial struggles that anyone can relate to. Not many found-footage films are executed in such a realistic fashion as Exhibit A, the drama was raw, the deteriorating family at the center of the story could be the family next door, or even worse yours! The film is an extremely upsetting watch that I will never want to watch again, making it kind of hard to recommend something of such depressing magnitude. The film though stands as a testament that you don't need a large budget, well-known actors or an A-list director to create a movie that has such a powerful impact.The performances were remarkable and were all too real, the actors made everything seem like a horrifying reality. Bradley Cole gives one of the most gripping, startling downward spiral of a family man since Jack Nicholson's performance from The Shining, absolutely bone chilling! Bradley plays Andy King, a seemingly normal husband and father of two who is a secret lie, which digs him and his family into the darkest side of human nature. Brittany Ashworth gives such a sympathetic and devastating performance that will grab your heart. Brittany plays Judith King, the lonely, shy, with a fragile soul that is confused sexually and may be in the closet. Judith basically documents every moment of the family's day-to-day life, as a result she discovers the dad's damaging secret and his disturbing change in behavior. Angela Forrest gives such an earnest performance; she plays an everyday mom Sheila King, who is excited about her husband's promotion that leads them to put a down payment on beautiful beach house. Aggressive sparks fly when questionable things start to unravel and hidden secrets come to light to disquieting results, an all too late realization for the wife and mother. Lastly, Oliver Lee who plays Joe King, the jokester son who begins to butt heads with his father and starts to truly hate him. He was kind of the comic relief of the film and you relate to his character as he can be you or someone you know, making the last moments all the more horrific and lingering.Writer, Director, Dom Rotheroe has created a timely, ripped from the headlines, distressing story that happens to be a found-footage horror. He connects with the audience, grabs their souls and throws them in the heart stopping realism of financial woes, which takes a normal father in a downward, sinister direction of the most unthinkable. This was surprisingly a very well made found-footage film despite its limited budget, though a very harsh and sad film that will ruin your day. It was like you weren't even watching a movie, but more like watching evidence at a murder trial, kind of similar to the real life case involving John List of 1971. Nothing you enjoy watching but too absorbing to stop. It's a shame that he hasn't made any other movies since this one, which was released back in 2007. The film deserves more recognition than what it got because it's one of the very few found-footage films that has a lasting impact.Overall, this film will haunt you to the core, as the drama is all too real. The performances were compelling and heart shattering and the story were raw and have relevance. The last couple of minutes will traumatize you and will make you sick, a film you won't want to return to but definitely gets it's point across. Rent with caution! 6.6 out of 10

Exhibit A tells the timely story of a normal family disintegrating under financial pressure, eventually driven to the unimaginable.All is not as it seems as the King family go about their day-to-day lives oblivious of the horror to come. Dad And is nursing a secret that ultimately leads to terrible consequences for them all.We witness these chilling events unfold through daughter Judith's video camera....Very topical even two years on and the thing that makes this all the more unsettling is that this sort of thing (minus the ending) happens on a day to day basis. But the fact that Andy hides his failures to the camera is only the tip of the iceberg in his persona.If you look deep into the film, his personal belongings and attributes could indicate that he had a very sad child hood, and his outbursts of mania could indicate that he suffers from cyclothemic personality disorder.There is never an equilibrium with Andy. he is either really, really up, or depressed beyond belief, and this is evident in his mannerisms and body language.It's a brilliantly made piece of work, although it's not an enjoyable experience to watch. In fact it's unbearable toward the end, with only a little light at the end of the tunnel.The performances are outstanding, and this is one of the better 'found footage' films made.It loses a couple of points for the confrontation at the barbecue, but all in all, it's solid, shocking stuff.

Several films have worked with the conceit that they are constructed of 'found footage', most notably Cannibal Holocaust and its bloodless cousin The Blair Witch Project but few have done so as convincingly or to such strong effect as this second feature from British director Dom Rotheroe.Exhibit A uses as its title card a police evidence marker which lets us know that the tape we are about to watch is from a murder scene and that its origin is 'daughter's camcorder'. This is an excellent touch - playing into Hitchcock's first rule of suspense; let the audience know more than the characters. That one card gives the entire film a sense of foreboding, which it would otherwise lack.The film is shot entirely on a commercial camcorder, operated mostly by the actors and the look is completely authentic, there's little here to suggest that what you are watching was filmed for consumption; it's scrappily shot, the camera often moves erratically and few shots seem at all composed, all of which only adds to the air of authenticity.Rotheroe deliberately cast the film with unknowns and he's really lucked out with his cast, especially the heart-breakingly talented Brittany Ashworth (Judith King). What impresses most though is how naturally the family interacts and how, in the early part of the film, they seem like every family; like yours or mine. The intricacies of family dynamics often play out in the background of shots; subtly building the reality of the situation so that when things get more extreme it's deeply affecting.Violence in cinema often passes me by now. I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times that it's really shaken me up. Exhibit A is one of those times. I'm spoiling nothing by saying that the film culminates in the murder that leads to that title card. It's a 12-minute sequence, shot in a single static take and it is the single most harrowing thing I've seen since the rape scene in Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. It's not that the violence is explicit, quite the opposite, it all takes place off screen but that it is so extended, so brutally intense and so very personal.At a time when most films that see the inside of a cinema will slip from the memory almost as you rise from your seat Exhibit A is a welcome shock. It's an intense and difficult experience but it is one you won't forget in a hurry and one that will provoke debate and discussion among audiences, that would be worth applauding even if it didn't also happen to be one of 2007's very best films.

A video camera is found at a scene of a crime. The content of the camera is the actual film we're watching.A teenage girl gets a video camera as a present from her very jolly dad. As she starts playing around with her new toy and documenting her life, we begin to get an insight into her family life. We slowly watch her father unravel as we begin to understand the situation he is in. He has lied to his family about his work situation and his finances. We watch him digging himself deeper and deeper into his evolving nightmare (an attempt at a pool is the visual metaphor of his downfall).Very powerful performance from the actor playing the father. The performances around him help build up a solid film - edgy, inventive and daring. The visual style of the film (we see everything told from the point of view of the video camera), pays off, especially in the final, very daring scene.This film does not make for easy viewing. It is however very rewarding.