SEATTLE A Middle-American mindbender that finds a microbudget-friendly take on time travel, Tim Connery's Easton's Article is less successful at glossing over the logical quandaries inherent in chrono-contorting plots. Hardcore genre buffs may bite at a VOD release hoping to discover this year's Primer, but most will find its execution underwhelming.
Easton Denning (Chad Meyer) returns to Dubuque in 1997 after a 19-year absence, revisiting old haunts and making contact with old friend Hayley (Kristina Johnson) despite clearly having left town with unfinished business. In this interaction and others, halting performances contribute to an atmosphere thick with regret; eventually, though, the dialogue's long pauses grow monotonous.
Soon, Easton explains his visit to Hayley: In the course of gathering raw data from the Internet, he received a cache of files containing his own obituary -- which places his death in the near future, in Dubuque, and ties it to some other predictions that are already coming true.
The deeply unsatisfying explanation for this transmission -- Easton envisions a point in the future at which data will pile up like a flood, somehow floating bits of information backward and forward in time in search of equilibrium -- is matched by the dubious strategies Easton and Hayley employ to try to stop his impending demise.
In the absence of production value, the least a film like this can offer is a premise so tightly reasoned it makes its internal reality undeniable. Instead, Connery offers half-effective backstory about Easton and Hayley's mutual friend, who died just before Easton skipped town; nothing in that story of guilt and shame requires a science-fiction gimmick for emotional exploration.
Bottom Line: No-budget time-travel pic offers little suspense and less narrative logic
Venue: Seattle International Film Festival, Sci-fi and Beyond
Production Companies: Flood 93 Films, DreamCatcher Productions, Double Dubuque Productions
Cast: Chad Meyer, Kristina Johnson, Dan Flannery, Charlene Hinderman
Director-Screenwriter: Tim Connery
Producers: Tim Connery, JEB Metzger
Executive producer: Joe Scherrman
Director of photography: Jackson Cooper Gango
Editor: Michael Zak
No rating, 99 minutes
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