Heartbeat (2020)

Way back when I reviewed Choke after an email from Mad Sin Cinema brought it to my attention, that same email let me know about this film, and I watched it then too, planning to review it soon after Choke. Somehow though that didn't happen, and after getting an email from them about The Wrong Sarah, I realized I still hadn't reviewed this, so with this month's indie spotlight, I'm finally making it happen.

Heartbeat isn't about the Don Johnson song of the same name, but rather is about Jennifer (Nicole D'angelo), a reporter who's discovering that people connected to a recent story are turning up dead. Now she needs to dig back into her research and figure out who could be doing this, and what their motives might be, before she ends up dead herself. At the same time, she's forming a budding romance with a local police detective (Chris Spinelli). Does he know more than he's letting on? And what about the creepy photographer (Shane Ryan-Reid) who seems to be following her around? What does he know? When is Shane Ryan-Reid not a murderer in a movie?

This is another interesting one from Gregory Hatanaka. There's some strange alchemy going on with these films for me, because I feel like they shouldn't work, but for some reason I can't articulate, they do--which is an issue if I'm writing a review of the movie. In the IMDb reviews, someone mentioned the kills had notes of Giallo films, and that might explain some of it, even though I'm not as familiar with that world of cinema; but I did like the stylized way he depicted the kills, so that probably explains it. The lead, played by Nicole D'angelo--who also co-wrote--is much realer than the usual lead in a murder mystery movie like this, and I think that's another element that works. It's almost like this real person has been dumped into this crazy Hatanaka space, and we can use her to anchor ourselves as we try to make sense of things. Then we have the frenetic energy of Shane Ryan-Reid, which, though it's really toned down here for this part, still enhances the proceedings. And then of course you have a runtime of 73 minutes, which never hurts. I don't know if this movie is for everyone, but it worked enough for me.

Nicole D'angelo has done a bunch of movies since 2019 for Cinema Epoch, of which I've only scene Choke--plus she had a part in Samurai Cop 2--but this is one of five she's written, plus she also has five she's directed or co-directed with Hatanaka, so this looks like this is one of many she's had a more creative hand in beyond acting. As I said above, the thing I think she brings to the proceedings here is she's written and she plays someone who feels real, which adds a dimension we seldom see in this kind of movie. Usually the female lead is someone who's not quite human, more like a caricature of an idea of a woman. Beyond the sense that she helps to anchor us while we navigate Hatanaka's crazy world, we also get an authenticity that allows us to follow her when her character is reacting to danger or recovering from an attack. I also liked that the movie sets up like a traditional murder mystery, where she's going to have a man that can save her, but then ultimately it's up to her to save herself when she's caught by the baddie, which I thought was a great decision. Considering the other films she's written or directed for Cinema Epoch are also on Tubi, this won't be the last film of hers we cover.

Shane Ryan-Reid is back as well. As I usually do, I felt like this movie could have used more of his frenetic energy, but I think the amount we got worked better, because it didn't allow us to take the focus off of D'angelo, which is where we needed it. To me it also showed that Ryan-Reid can do this kind of character, where maybe he's not turning the dial to 11 and breaking off the nob, but even in the understated tone there's a sense of menace in there that keeps us from getting too comfortable. The scenes with D'angelo were great too, because I liked the way they played off each other. Combine that with the scenes she has with her other male co-star Chris Spinelli, which had a different kind of energy, but also worked really well. In a way, the Ryan-Reid scenes with D'angelo remind us we're in a Hatanaka film, while the ones she does with Spinelli almost make us forget we're in Hatanaka's cinematic world, and D'angelo does a great job weaving them together.

Like Choke, Hatanaka is bringing his own style to the proceedings, though unlike Choke, I think this has a bit more cohesion to it, while still breaking down the classic murder mystery movie. Also where this differs from Choke is, while Choke couldn't (at least for me) escape the tired trope of the older man and teen girl, even with Hatanaka's stylized shooting and Ryan-Reid's and Sarah Brine's performances; I think here, the murder mystery genre was crying out for a female lead that broke Hollywood conventions, so once we were able to establish D'angelo as that break from the norms, Hatanaka wasn't working uphill like he was in Choke, so the rest of the movie could play out much more easily. Both films though show Hatanaka as someone doing some interesting things that I enjoyed, so, like with Shane Ryan-Reid and Nicole D'angelo, I'm looking forward to seeing more of his stuff.

Finally, I wasn't sure where to go with this last paragraph, in part because the movie is so short, there isn't as much to cover. That's good though, I'd rather struggle through finding my seventh paragraph than struggle through a 100-minute movie. In a world where the new Batman movie is 3 hours, to see that Cinema Epoch is staying in the sub-80-minute range is refreshing. Yes, I imagine budgetary constraints play as big a role in that as anything, but it's still nice. I've always been a big proponent of supporting indie works, and when the movie is only asking for a small amount of time, it's a lot easy to give that support. That new Batman movie, notsomuch.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi. Like Hatanaka's other work, I don't know if this is for everyone, but based on the reviews I'm seeing on IMDb, this may be for more people than I thought, which is good. It's definitely unique, so if you've got 70 minutes to kill and are looking for something different, give this a shot.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11127512

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!