Review of 'Vendetta Road': A trigger-happy fest that to hit the mark, well almost!

Vendetta Road: A trigger-happy fest that tries to hit the mark

Cast: Maci Engle, Ryan Crews, Christian Watkins, Julian Cornejo, Sydney Alder

Critic’s Rating: 3 Stars out of 5

Director: Nathan Light

Duration: 1 hour, 21 minutes

Genre: Action, Thriller, Crime

Language: English

Release: 2023

What’s it about?

The lady manager of camping location finds that her life is in danger when armed invaders run amok.

Review

For those who enjoy a gun-discharging thriller film, Vendetta Road might be quite an engaging experience - especially for a low-budget celluloid venture. However, the relatively thin character development and uneven plot might fail to completely satisfy viewers. Still, this ambitious little film shows how empathy and camaraderie, not to mention marksman’s skills, can confront severe adversity. Plus, the premise of the film makes good use of the great outdoors, alternating pleasant visuals of open verdant expanses with the claustrophobia of adjacent cabins.

The movie opens in the camp land of El Reno, when Dakota (Maci Engle) is relieving her co-worker Ryder (Ryan Crews) at the office cabin for her shift. An avid deer hunter, the young lady trades in a prized heirloom to buy trail cameras, which she then sets up across the premises. Little does Dakota know how important this arrangement will prove. She attends to her regular duties of going on her rounds, clearing trash, cleaning her headquarters, putting campers up in cabins and answering phone-calls. 

After she hands a cabin key to a pleasant new guest named Harold Zaboski (Julian Cornejo), something strange disrupts her boring routine. Dakota gets a series of phone-calls from cabin lodgers saying that someone has been calling to extract their credit card information. Her investigations lead to a dead end. Returning to the cabin and checking on the trail camera’s monitor screen, Dakota notices a young man in a hooded jumper (Christian Watkins) walking around with a shovel. She follows him to Cabin 5, where she discovers a trail of blood.

Suspecting murder, she confronts the mysterious suspect. What follows is a game of cat and mouse between Dakota and the youth who reveals that his name is Ivan. The plot thickens when several men in military garb and wielding rifles appear on the camp land. But who are they after and what is their motive? With no way of communicating to the outside world, Dakota has to rely on her wits and the tenuous camera views, to deal with the tense situation. But whom can she trust and what strategy must she employ?

The film’s premise, while well-mounted, gets a little monotonous in the early second half. While the violent scenes are fairly convincing, one can’t help but think that most of the armed invaders are pretty lousy shots. Also, some of the face-offs seem implausible and while rookie director Nathan Light tries hard to generate suspense, it varies considerably towards the conclusion. 

Lady lead actress Engle delivers a convincing performance, but Watkins’ acting leaves something to be desired. Also, the armed assailants remain mostly faceless personalities, though the frenetic shooting and editing of the gun-fight scenes almost always hit the spot. However, the twist at the end is only a mild surprise. All in all though, 'Vendetta Road' retains the viewer’s interest for most of its 81 minutes and also has something to say for woman power. This is one camping trail or Road fairly worthy of going down.