Betrayed

Hey folks! Back again with a request viewing from the Williamson Management Company that I give their award based film some much needed love. We have "critics" about this movie and general speaking it's just trolls complaining because a story takes time to properly unfold.

With the award hailing from Queen Palm International Film Festival today's film shines a light on the horrors of the real world like human trafficking. This is Betrayed.

Good thing he didn't use a knife, fellas.

Brought to us from director Harley Wallen (Deceitful, Moving Parts, Bennett's Song and Abeyance) comes a tale of a city in need of order. Mayor Alderman (John Savage of The Deer Hunter, Salvador, Thin Red Line, The Godfather Part III, Fatal Choice and The X-Files) has serious issues his administration needs to address.

We open our movie with a couple of care free girls out on the town with a couple of jerks just looking to get in their pants. For crying out loud, guys. Just get a sex doll since you have no respect for women. No sooner do the douche duo leave, two men abduct the girls off the street, toss them in a van and take off. Now that sets a tone already. Cut to our title sequence and edgy music intro.

A supply and demand of young women is big business for traffickers, and Mikhail Kovalchek (Harley Wallen of I Declare War, Stay, Pimps, Pastors &Politicians, Moving Parts, Bennett's Song and Betrayed) is a man who meets his quotas and deadlines.   The Mayor is pissed that Mikhail and his Bratva thugs have overstepped their bounds in his town, catching a lot of flack for it from the people and will not take the heat for this.   Guess he should have seen this coming when he decided to take kickbacks from THE MOB!!!!  Hindsight 20/20 being what it is, the Mayor is trying to juggle City Hall, public opinion and assure the citizens the city is safe.

She clearly needs a Hello Kitty calendar.

Detectives Alex Redford (Jennifer Jelsema of The End of the Tour, Space Debris, Empire, Alaska Is a Drag and Moving Parts) and Sandra Miller (Aphrodite Nikolovski of Ocean of Pearls, Answer This!, Red & Blue Marbles, Cut/Print, Consideration and Bennett's Song) are dealing with these bodies showing up in dumpsters and alleys while there is no official comment from the Mayor on how this is being handled.  They are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.

The Mayor washes his hands of the Russians and to fix his income status, he invites the Cartel in to the city. Now to me, this is stopping the brush fire with a flamethrower but hey, I know not enough about politics. Bed hopping with two different mobs is bound to have no real repercussions. Mikhail will no doubt feel "Betrayed". Y'see what I did there?   I did a thing.

Ahem, moving right along, the coroner looks vaguely familiar as I spoke and interviewed one of his co-stars, lovely Vida Ghaffari about Abeyance none other than Stairmaster of The People Under the Stairs himself, Yan Birch (Santa Barbara, Strange Days, Essence of Echoes, Charmed, Tangerine Sky, Terror Tales, Death House and Waking Nightmares)

Stone (Richard Tyson) and Mikhail take a meeting and Stone really points up the pros of being on the Mayor's good side creating a balance in the city versus rubbing the administration the wrong way. Stone will continue to do business but needs Mikhail to see that going to war with the city is just bad for business.

This was a productive meeting.

Mikhail displays his grievances with the Mayor by abducting his only daughter, Marie (Kaiti Wallen of Number One Contender, Broken, Set Me Free, Deceitful, Moving Parts and Bennett's Song) from the very club, The Foxtrot he does business in. Mikhail is under the impression he is invincible. Yeah, this is going to go down smooth as Egyptian whiskey.

Mike Wolf (Billy Wirth) is a grifter, a rambler and definitely a gambler. Contract merc for who even knows how many dirty jobs.  His gig is shadow running crews and seems to be damn good at it.  Yeah folks, there are no good guys in this one. There are the tarnished, the bad and the evil.

Will Mikhail be retired early?? Is the Mayor going to feed Mikhail his balls personally??

A few side notes now. It was insanely awesome to see Billy Wirth of The Lost Boys and Richard Tyson of Three o' Clock High and Kindergarten Cop in some juicy roles. Real meat and potato kind of roles. Two guys you know they can carry their end and then some.

Composer Kaizad Patel (Moving Parts, Love Espionage,: Spy Revenge, Bennett's Song and Betrayed) really sets the moods of the scenes with the music. Good ratcheting of tension and incidental music and I hope to hear more of it soon.

I don't understand this piss poor reviews. This was gritty, dark and a fair amount of shades of grey. Showing how Detroit can and probably does operate.  Frankly Wallen is casting a beacon at what is deemed one of the worse cities in the US and honestly it really makes you wonder how far removed is this fiction from the fact. 

We can conclude she was definitely a girl.