Swift shot: It’s rare that a “found footage” film is handled in a way that comes off as believable, but Amber Alert does a superb job of pulling it off. The film asks one very important question, how far would you go to interfere to help a stranger . . . and what if you’re wrong the whole time? What if it’s nothing but your imagination? Co-written by first time Director Kerry Bellessa, Amber Alert is a slowly building suspense that deserves to be seen.
Samantha (Summer Bellessa) and Nathan (Chris Hill) are best friends, they’ve grown up doing everything together. When Samantha decides to enter a reality show, the eternally friend-zoned, Chris is more than willing to participate. This is to be their last big adventure together, and they have enlisted the help of Samantha’s little brother, Caleb (Caleb Thomspon) who provides an earnest voice throughout the film. He is hard to hear, sometimes, but he does add a little to each scene.
On one of their so-called, ‘free time” sessions, they are on the Arizona highway when one of them spots an Amber Alert message about a vehicle matching the description of a car right in front of them. It is at this moment that you begin to ask yourself what you would do in that situation. Odds are this is probably just a bad divorce custody issue, and one of the parents has accused the other of “kidnapping” their own kid. At least that is what Nathan thinks. Samantha assumes the worst.
I won’t divulge the truth here.
At times the dialog turns into a veritable screaming match as the two friends test their relationship over the fate of the child that they have no way of knowing even exists. And I can understand why some people might get annoyed with this in a film, but think about reality . . . how many times have you completely lost it and just started shouting to be heard while in a small car with your friends? Half the time when Samantha was screeching, I was telling her (out loud) to shut up and calm down. Nathan had a lot more patience.
Often times in found footage films, the concept of forensics is over-looked. In other words, all the little details that allow us (the audience) privy to view the footage are not realized. Not so in Amber Alert, as sensitive information is covered up and edited out as it would be authentically. Perhaps the biggest flaw of Amber Alert is the almost complete lack of police presence. But, think about how many action movies show twenty minute sequences with full on machine gun fire and nary an officer in sight? Also, the way everything unfolds, it’s necessary to leave the police out of the film. To use an obvious pun, it would be a cop out.
Check out Amber Alert for an earnest look at yourself and how far you would be willing to go, out of your way, to help someone that might not even exist!
