Fiverine Tin God is an interesting indie film which benefits from mostly strong performances, especially from Whitney Duff as the enigmatic Sasha. It is somewhat hampered by a shoestring budget and less than ideal shooting location (it was filmed in a regional town), but if you can look past these elements it tells an interesting story about a handful of angst-filled young adults. Anyone who was melancholy in their early 20s will likely find something to relate to in these characters. Director Jake Reedy shows some promise and raw talent in his shot selection and generally does his best to conceal the tiny budget and quiet location and maintain the atmosphere. To his credit, the film possesses a strong noirish tone, with flawed characters coming into conflict during their grimy lives.

reality_biter I Loved this film.My personal belief is that Jake Reedy is the most interesting and stylish film auteur to emerge from the Queensland Independent scene in many a year. No one is pushing boundaries like he,and this film is a spot of stylized darkness in the heart of the sunshine state. He, along with Co writer Rachael McMeeking have created a wonderful lament to the self destructive nature of young love and obsession. Tin God is a world of nihilism, self loathing and broken people.Rather than a A to B story, This is an intensely brooding character study on Ethan, played to absolute perfection by master craftsman Tana Smith, a bubbling fountain of barely restrained psychosis, a similarly self obsessed, but much more rageful character to Sean Bateman from the amazing Rules of Attraction, of which Tin God shares much in the portrayal of it's broken, flawed dramatis personae. Orbiting the emotional black hole that is Ethan is his step brother Jesse, played with a sly wit by the amazing Benjamin James Doolan, whose performance fills Jesse with a likable loathsomeness, relishing the cheek of his character and playing it with a stark honesty to Ethan's self deluded nature. In the closing moments, this is the tragedy we are keenly aware of: That Jesse has been honest with Ethan the entire time, like the friend who tells you the truth you do not want to hear. Enabling Ethan is Joey Kingman as Cassie. Kingman's performance is so subtle and nuanced that it seems to not fit with the others, which i believe is it's strength. Through Cassie, Kingman shows us that she does not fit in with these dark, crumbling souls, and that her character is a path to redemption that is ultimately a casualty of the cycle of destruction Ethan locks himself in.Whitney Duff as the heat breaking Sasha is not the cause of all this, but the match that starts the inferno. Duff is electric as Sasha, The girl you know is bad, yet Duff fills her full of a melancholic sadness that is like the first drops of rain upon an empty beach. Amazing acting.One thing I adored worthy of note was the costume design. Avoiding the usual traps, There was obviously a lot of thought put into the characters wardrobe; Ethan seems to primarily be attired in black and white for most of the film, reflecting his characters world view, Sasha is the type of punk rock girl absent from Australian cinema, Jesse is in blues and blacks, reflecting the laid back nature of his character. Cassie is very warm and inviting. And the Halloween party was a visual feast of costume, particularly with Cassie and Jesse.The lighting! What an achievement Reedy has pulled together under such adverse circumstances. The lighting and camera work are the signs of true talent, to infuse such style on such a limited budget shows the true creativity of this director. This is true cinema veritae in action, to bring the elements of what could be akin to the style of 'found footage' films, marrying it with the neo noir stylings of Sin City and Mann's Miami Vice and blend it with the dreary undertones and high drama of films such as Best Laid Plans, Gossip or Body Shots.Over all, the true cold heart of Tin God is the uncompromising reality. The language, the nudity, all ring true. A great film from a director and cast who will go places. I have rented twice, And I will be buying this art-house gem and urge you to do the same!

goldyshooter Here's the spoiler. Jake Reedy can't make a good movie. Tin God is full of nothing but characters you hate who are all sookey grunge stereotypes, gratuitous nudity and 'super cool' dialogue. The cast are good, but it's hard to do anything good with such lousy material. I've seen others say that this is some sort of ode to the emotional difficulty of being Twenty whatever, all it seems to me is that the director, if you could call him that, has taken out all his ex girlfriend issues and dumped them on film and expected us to care. The pointless nude scenes are not daring, they're just pointless excuses to get the actresses to flash some flesh for the directors benefit and little else. I hated the writing. Why are we watching an Australian movie where no one speaks Australian? These people all talk like some stupid American movie. What genre is this? it's not a drama, it's not action, it's not thriller. It's just the directors jouernal put on film. I've read stuff about this on it's facebook page and honestly, talk about thinking your film is better than it is. How this got DVD release i don't know. Save your money and go get a good Aussie action or horror instead. Crush this tin and throw it in the recycle bin.

Indiefilmfan79 I was lucky enough to view Tin God recently, and while it is not without it's faults, it's a solid independent film effort that has one foot firmly in the great American indie film boom of the mid to late 1990's. However, It's very dark and certainly not for everyone.The story is very reminiscent of this sort of film, feeling much like a cross between Greg Arakki's Doom Generation and Reality Bites. Nihilistic 20 something slackers caught in their own self destructive ways looking for love and happiness. It's an old story, But writer director Jake Reedy manages to infuse it with a sense of gritty realism and a sense of melancholic fun, almost an 'angst for the memories' note to everybody's mid 20's. The script stands out because of the dialogue. Reedy and Co-writer Rachael McMeeking have done what so many Independent films fail at and have given their characters the voice of real, 3 dimensional people. these characters speak like people you know. The dialogue is witty and sharp, without venturing into tragically hip territory. As great as the script is, it's delivered with mixed results. Tana Smith and Whitney Duff as Ethan and Sasha respectively, shine whenever they're on screen,especially together, some of their 'dating' scenes are incredibly sweet and real. Both are perfectly natural and filling the more emotional scenes with burning intensity. Benjamin James Doolan delivers a solid performance, making a character that should be completely unlikeable verge on empathetic, especially with his great monologue confession to Sasha. The weakest link here is the actress playing Ethan's friend Cassie. I found her unconvincing and difficult to watch. She lacked the intensity and natural charm of the other cast,and there was no chemistry between her or other cast members. As a character I'm assuming, from the story, we are meant to feel sympathy for and relate to,I felt none. In fact i would go so far as to say I felt a sense of relief when her character was killed on screen, as it returned to sole focus to the rest of the cast who could hold the screen.The look of the film is a strange mix of almost film noir and a grungy music video/ documentary, almost like reedy has been inspired by Micheal Mann's experiments in pseudo documentary/ style. When it works, it works very, very well, but earlier in the film it seems to falter in some spots. Obviously Reedy's vision and ambition have far outstripped his budget in this project, but A good solid "A" for effort is certainly called for. All told, Tin God is a good, solid indie effort, a darkly nihilistic look at obsessive ideas of love taken to extremes, full of emotionally broken characters you enjoy yet are capable of horrible behavior. The photography is far superior to what you normally see in an low budget drama, and if the few problems I previously stated ie: an established style, more of a budget, and a more capable actress playing one of the key characters weren't there, I'd rate this film much higher. However, i think it deserves a 7 simply for what the film makers have tried to do, and succeeded in some places, with limited resources. Hopefully they'll do another in the near future.