Thanks for the memories!

Good concept, poorly executed.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

I usually prefer the entertaining to the artistic in movies, but Freeze Frame is the first film that I think would have been better if it had been less commercial and more idiosyncratic.Almost 10 years ago, Sean Veil (Lee Evans) was accused of a horrible triple murder he didn't commit. The case against him was thrown out of court because of the media grandstanding by lead detective Louis Emoric (Sean McGinley) and forensic psychologist Saul Seger (Ian McNeice). Since that day, Sean has been consumed by paranoia, fearful of the authorities framing him for another murder. His response to his fear is as obvious as it is disturbing. For nearly a decade, Sean has been videotaping every single second of his life. He has multiple cameras stationed throughout his dungeon-like home. When he goes outside, he straps a camera to his chest. Sean has created a visual record of every step, every meal, every night's sleep, every bowel movement, everything in his life for 9 years, 11 months and 28 days and stores all of those videotapes in a vault to provide him with the perfect alibi if he's ever wrongly accused again.Sean might have gone on with his fearful and compulsive existence forever, but then a TV crime reporter named Katie Carter (Rachel Stirling) tells Sean she thinks he's innocent. That's what Sean has wanted more than anything in the world but he barely has time to enjoy it when the police burst in and accuse him of killing a woman 5 years ago. When Sean goes to get the tapes proving his innocence…they're gone. In a panic, Sean flees from the cops and tries to come up with another way to deflect this unjust charge but in doing so, he sets in motion a chain of events that not only reveal who's framing him now, but who framed him for the massacre of the Jasper family 10 years ago.This is a nice little film that's quite visually interesting. Some of it is shot like a normal film and some of it is footage from the many cameras Sean uses to record his life. It's a very good effort at utilizing the emotional and personal realism of the "handheld video" genre while freeing the story from the limitations of that style.Lee Evans does a fine job portraying a man whose obsession for control and protection has warped his personality. Sean McGinley gives the right air of desperation to a cop who is fighting off his own death long enough to catch Sean Veil and make him pay for something. Ian McNiece is also perfectly self-righteous as the psychologist who catapulted himself to fame on the Jasper murder case. Rachel Stirling's character is more of a plot device than a real person, but she handles well everything the plot needs Katie Carter to do.Freeze Frame, however, doesn't do enough with its own concept. The idea of a man so paranoid that he voluntarily lives under perpetual video surveillance of his own design suggests an awful lot of emotional and logistical ground to cover, but almost all of those details or possibilities are shoved aside because the film is more about being a clever mystery caper. The story only touches on Sean Veil's elaborate construction of his observation system in the most basic and shallow way. We also never get a sense of what kind of man Sean was before his initial arrest and the following years of obsessive personal vigilance, so there's nothing to compare to his present paranoid state. It limits the ability to sympathize with Sean because you don't really know how screwed up he is compared to his original self. I think the story would have been more effective if it had chucked most of the mystery and instead concentrated more on the way Sean lives his life and how it's changed him as a person.There are also a couple of significant twists in the story that don't add up. There's one element that couldn't exist in the American media and justice system, but this is an Irish film and I'm not sure if Irish laws on crime reporting are different enough to make the twist plausible. The climax is also too pat and neat and requires a character's behavior and mental state to flip 180 degrees for absolutely no reason.You won't be disappointed if you watch Freeze Frame, but you may feel like you've just seen a good idea that went largely unexplored.

Lee Evans (best known as stand up, rubbery-faced comedian in the UK) pulls off an astounding performance, and not just for leaving behind the relative comfort zone of comedy. Any 'serious' actor would be similarly lauded, I think. I won't rehash the plot - there are more than enough summaries on here - but what I will say, without spoiling anything, is that the film drives on its plot twists. It's just that at a certain point about 3/4 in, there is almost a twist too many, and the characters appear to be taking longer to work out what the hell is going on, who did what to whom, and why, and then they realise that they were really lying about one thing, and not the other, which drags the film down, with some rather tedious explanations - that still remain thoroughly necessary - which grate after a while. The sense one is left with is that the filmmakers are almost learning the plot along with US, and there isn't a sense of control in the narrative. I mean, obviously they knew what happened, but the tone was of constant uncertainty about how to end it, and who to make the bad guy. So instead of making choices, they choose instead to make EVERYONE the bad guy at one time or another until they hit upon a convenient enough resolution that will satisfy the most amount of people. It is, however, beautifully lit (a scene with Evans leaving his house/warehouse/prison which is backlit with multiple shadows is extraordinary) and the CCTV footage style is never excessive or derivative. The one feeling I was left with having bought it online second hand for about £2.50, was: cool, but I doubt I'll watch that again. At least a year's time before I consider it. It would only be worth it for Evans' performance, as unfortunately, the makers just couldn't get a classy enough backup cast; the Rachel character is a particular weakness, when her role is critical to the narrative, yet she remains the weakest performance here, verging on high school incompetence at times. The notion that British law would ever allow such a blatant miscarriage of justice, when the evidence is SO SO flimsy against Sean, further upsets things. You tend to let it go, though, thanks to Evans brilliant portrayal as a man condemned to fight for his right to innocence. Worth checking out, but don't go out of your way.

**Mini Spoiler*** The plot of this film is a little too obvious, and why do scripts have to have one of the main four characters end up as the killer? I will not let on as to who, just to keep you in suspense. **Mini Spoiler Ends***This flick has the feel of a modern day Agatha Christie novel, and could have been a stage-play with it's limited locales. But…. It has some great visuals, and I loved the broken up, jerky digital images that got thrown up in the early part of the film. The vault of Camcorder Tapes detailing an obsessive man's life was great.Lee Evans shows he is a good actor, but I do not think this was the break-through film for him. He has the potential of doing what Robin Williams cooked up in One Hour Photo - and just needs the right part…The Point-Of-View footage and multiple camcorder images did wear after awhile, and the rest of the movie was so jet-black that things got a little dull visually - even the likes of ultra-bleak Se7en had a few "colourful" moments - but this was probably the look the makers were striving for.Also, I kept thinking "why do that?" and "what a stupid thing to have done" - normally plot-holes do not bother me, but the storyline was straying a lot from it's initial edgy, hyper-realistic, noir style. Things just seemed to get more and more illogical, but with everyone still playing it fairly straight - unless I was missing something….. So…. A nice effort and lots of style for a limited budget - but a little too formulaic and over-stylised for my liking.

Firstly, I have to say Lee Evans is without doubt stunning in this film. We can only hope that he gets further meaty roles on the back of this performance.A triple murder suspect has his case thrown out of court due to police incompetence. Vowing his innocence, he becomes a paranoid who tapes himself "24/7/52" and keeps the tapes in a special vault. Just before the 10th anniversary of the murders, he is again arrested on suspicion of murder, and when he tries to produce the relevant tapes they are missing.The only downside to this superbly edited, visually stunning film is the lack of suspects as there are only half a dozen characters throughout. Other than that, it's well worth watching. Unlike most people here, I even enjoyed the ending (especially Evans last words!)