Mother Mary (Kathleen Munroe) and Paul (Chenier Hundal) leave their 12 year old son Henry (Luca Villacis) with Mary's father Jacob (Michael Ironside) so that they can fly out to attend a cousin's funeral. Initially all is well (albeit Henry isn't quite at home with his granddad's quirky ways). However, Jacob's sudden death overnight sets off a chain reaction consisting of Henry being pursued and terrorised and finds himself in a battle of wits to try to thwart his pursuer...
As I've stated in my review summary Knuckleball is poor as a thriller, but worse than that are the numerous things with the characters/narrative that just didn't make sense; for a start, Mary mentions that she doesn't like her father's home and that she didn't like going there because she believes that her mother killed herself because her father had an affair. If that's the case then why on earth would you be happy for your child to stay somewhere that you wouldn't want to stay particularly given what had happened to Mary's mother? It seemed very odd to me and it felt like the parent's couldn't wait to leave their son with Jacob and get as far away as possible (which is what they did). The father's general disinterest with his own son's well-being was another puzzling element to the story - I thought at first I missed something and that he was perhaps Henry's stepfather (which would make his passiveness a little easier to believe, but I checked back at the start of the film and he is indeed Henry's dad so why the lackadaisical attitude?). To me this formed part of the problem as the parent's behaviour drew me slightly away from proceedings - the son leaves a voicemail message that they don't listen till until 2 days later? It meant to me that the film lacked any real sense of urgency.
Where the film is at its overall weakest however is definitely in the first half of the picture; you can actually fast-forward through the first 30 minutes and you would barely miss a thing. Michael Ironside grunts and mumbles his way through the film (with its poor storyline and low production values it did make me wonder what made him sign up to this project?). His grandson is subjected to labour intensive tasks and throws a baseball at a wall a few times and then Jacob pops his clogs which then just becomes a catalyst for the final sequence of events.
The finale sees Henry fighting to survive against his step uncle/uncle Dixon (Munro Chambers) who has murderous intentions on his mind - is he just naturally crazy or is he hacked off that Jacob insisted that Dixon remained his dirty secret? Perhaps it was a bit of both because if he was just hacked off with Jacob then why try and kill Henry? Playing out like a cross between Home Alone and The Shining the battle of wits between Henry and Jacob in the latter stages of the film do give the picture a slight lift, but only on odd occasions. Oh yeah and one other thing that I thought was pretty stupid was when Henry's parents return at the end and they're able to enter a murder scene unchallenged by any police officers? Surely the area would have been cordoned off in the real world??
Had it actually worked as a thriller I could have overlooked many of the puzzling elements involving the story/characters then it would probably would have been something I would recommend in the mould of a 'leave your brain at the door type film.' But the fact that it lacks any significant moments of terror or suspense results in it being a tedious waste of 80 odd minutes.
Ending on a positive I did think that Chambers & Villacis were pretty good in their respective roles.
As I've stated in my review summary Knuckleball is poor as a thriller, but worse than that are the numerous things with the characters/narrative that just didn't make sense; for a start, Mary mentions that she doesn't like her father's home and that she didn't like going there because she believes that her mother killed herself because her father had an affair. If that's the case then why on earth would you be happy for your child to stay somewhere that you wouldn't want to stay particularly given what had happened to Mary's mother? It seemed very odd to me and it felt like the parent's couldn't wait to leave their son with Jacob and get as far away as possible (which is what they did). The father's general disinterest with his own son's well-being was another puzzling element to the story - I thought at first I missed something and that he was perhaps Henry's stepfather (which would make his passiveness a little easier to believe, but I checked back at the start of the film and he is indeed Henry's dad so why the lackadaisical attitude?). To me this formed part of the problem as the parent's behaviour drew me slightly away from proceedings - the son leaves a voicemail message that they don't listen till until 2 days later? It meant to me that the film lacked any real sense of urgency.
Where the film is at its overall weakest however is definitely in the first half of the picture; you can actually fast-forward through the first 30 minutes and you would barely miss a thing. Michael Ironside grunts and mumbles his way through the film (with its poor storyline and low production values it did make me wonder what made him sign up to this project?). His grandson is subjected to labour intensive tasks and throws a baseball at a wall a few times and then Jacob pops his clogs which then just becomes a catalyst for the final sequence of events.
The finale sees Henry fighting to survive against his step uncle/uncle Dixon (Munro Chambers) who has murderous intentions on his mind - is he just naturally crazy or is he hacked off that Jacob insisted that Dixon remained his dirty secret? Perhaps it was a bit of both because if he was just hacked off with Jacob then why try and kill Henry? Playing out like a cross between Home Alone and The Shining the battle of wits between Henry and Jacob in the latter stages of the film do give the picture a slight lift, but only on odd occasions. Oh yeah and one other thing that I thought was pretty stupid was when Henry's parents return at the end and they're able to enter a murder scene unchallenged by any police officers? Surely the area would have been cordoned off in the real world??
Had it actually worked as a thriller I could have overlooked many of the puzzling elements involving the story/characters then it would probably would have been something I would recommend in the mould of a 'leave your brain at the door type film.' But the fact that it lacks any significant moments of terror or suspense results in it being a tedious waste of 80 odd minutes.
Ending on a positive I did think that Chambers & Villacis were pretty good in their respective roles.