Empty is a sort of post apocalyptic story, if you can call going one week without gas a post apocalyptic event. Yes, this movie tells the tale of a world without gasoline-thus all gas tanks are Empty and anarchy reins.
Empty is an ultra low budget independent film with a cast of about ten people-with two of them grabbing the bulk of the screen time. Much like Monsters our heroes are a rich girl and a poor working class schmuck. The rich girl is mostly reasonable and sane, her working class, tough guy boyfriend is mostly a total asshole. We follow these two around as they try to get by in a world where a soda now cost five dollars and there is no gas to be had at any price.
For me the biggest problem is the time factor. Our heroes are out camping for one week, when they return to the real world, there is no gas and civilization has already started to crumble. Price gouging, robbery, and random acts of violence are now the norm. People are killing each other for no clear reasons. There is still TV, the Internet, and cellphones still work-until the power goes off and the phone’s batteries go dead.
A good deal of the film shows us nothing more interesting than the two lovers arguing over this and that. The rich girl wants to go to her father in London, but the boyfriend wants to Mad Max it in the USA. He’s all for getting guns and hiding out and taking no prisoners. Again, it seems a little over the top to me. The Wife says that New York City would run out of food in three days, but our heroes aren’t in NYC.
Empty was an odd little film. It could have used a little more editing, a few real actors, and I wasn’t a big fan of the shock ending. Watching Indie films is often a bit annoying-there’s a reason real movie companies don’t produce these films-they aren’t very good.
Of course, most Big Budget films aren’t very good either.
Empty was not very good, but it should give hope to anyone wanting to make a film when they have no money, no script, no actors, no director, and no real reason for making a movie.
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I thought the girl was pretty naive and unreasonable, too. First, the hotel manager was overcharging them and she just accepts it and gets irritated at her boyfriend for complaining. Later, she convinces her boyfriend to take in a hitch-hiker who then tries to kidnap her. After her boyfriend kills the guy to save her, she blames her boyfriend and feels sorry for the hitchhiker!
This movie doesn’t hold together too well, this is like a cheap B series or a cinema student assignment, it’s just not beleivable.
Too long in parts and the atmosphere isn’t quite there. The actors avec VERY weak, and the 5 minutes flashback scene at the end before the black screen. Come on! you can hardly get more cliché than that!