mistergutsy2299
What is a movie that's 'So Bad It's Good?' My definition for this is a movie that strives to be good but in reality is so terrible that it's good. Examples of this are The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, Batman & Robin and the recent Adam Sandler film, Pixels. So how is this movie? As any person would know simply from watching the trailer for this they'd know it's going for the 'So Bad it's good' route. Does it work?No.Before I go any further I should note that this movie was written, directed, and written by one person, Leopold Vincent Medley. This is his first feature length film. The director also stars in this movie as the main character. This reminds me of a movie I adore, Kevin Smith's film Clerks. That movie showed that anyone can direct a good movie and it doesn't matter how much money you have. This movie might not have gotten the message.THE REVIEW: STORY-The Ballad of Jeffrey follows Jeffrey, a teenage scientist who's trying to cure cancer. No I'm not kidding. He's actually trying to cure cancer.Sure it's a stupid idea but as this movie goes on to show,that's only scratching the surface. So Jeffrey is also a troubled teen. He's plagued by bullies then one day he's simply had enough and he goes on a rampage. Getting revenge and all that good stuff. Simply put I won't go on spoiling the rest of the movie for 2 reasons: 1. I'll get a brain tumor if I have to think about this movie again and 2. I don't want to spoil what happens in case you want to watch the movie. If you do then God bless your soul.THE ACTING-Now let's discuss the acting. In a movie that's so bad it's good you expect the acting to suck. And of course it does too in this movie. It's very clear that the director probably just sent a text to his friends saying 'Make a movie with me' and they had to agree. Now the comparisons to Clerks are going to continue again here. Clerks was made with the cast comprising Kevin Smith's friends and family members. This movie is too but the difference is that the acting in Clerks didn't want to make me give an Oscar to the guy who played Fin in Sharknado. What I'm saying is that the acting in this movie is truly..terrible. It starts off pretty funny. The bad acting is present at the start of the movie and it makes you howl with laughter but 10 minutes into the movie you start thinking, 'Okay it's funny and all but it's getting kind of old now..'It goes on for the rest of the movie. So yes, the acting is pretty bad in this movie even by So Bad It's Good levels but the actors are at least competent enough to let us know what's happening.PRODUCTION AND SETTING- Clerks comparison time! Clerks was made with only $27,575 dollars. Now Clerks takes place in mostly one setting for the entire movie: your run of the mill convenience store. It's a confining location but it works because of the dialogue from the actors and the story. What little there is in that movie.The Ballad of Jeffrey was not made with that budget. In fact I'm calling bull**** if this movie was made with a budget of more than 5 bucks. It's almost as if the director all of a sudden wrote the script in one afternoon and began shooting it that very same day with only the things around him as props.The settings in this movie are quite local which I appreciate. It's clear that the scenes in Jeffrey's house were shot in the director's own home and that a scene involving a (SPOILER) shooting were shot right down the street. But the problem is that the movie has no style. And I'll explain this in my next point. Camera-work and Cinematography- Kevin Smith's Clerks was shot in black and white. The reason for this is that Smith simply didn't have the budget for shooting in color. But at least he made the most out of shooting in black and white. It actually makes that movie better in a way.The Ballad of Jeffrey is shot in color but the difference is that the camera-work in this movie really stinks. You see the difference between the camera-work in Clerks and this movie is that Clerks was shot with REAL movie cameras. With actual film inside of them and stuff. This movie was seemingly shot with phones. I don't know if that's true or not but it probably is.The movie just looks terrible. There's no style to the camera-work, the colors are all washed out, close-ups of characters and items are laughably bad. And this is a nitpick but if you're an aspiring director at least have the decency to not film with phones. Please. If you don't have the money to buy a real camera then.. well maybe look at the rest of your movie. Even the Room was shot with real film cameras!CONCLUSION- In conclusion the Ballad of Jeffrey is a pretty bad film. I have sympathy for the director. Not too many actually have the guts to go ahead and try to make a movie at 14. There are small hints of potential in some parts of the movie but then someone begins to talk in the movie and I forget that potential. I am going to give 'The Ballad of Jeffrey' an F+
Jack Robertson
The Ballad of Jeffrey is not, by any means at all, a perfect film. Right off the bat, it's obvious that this is a film made by complete and total amateurs. The audio, which is clearly recorded with the on-board camera microphone, is shaky at best and at times really poor quality. (But at least you CAN hear what the characters are saying. That's not the case for every low-budget flick out there.) The cinematography is extremely bare-bones, the camera never moves at all, it's just completely static. They must have just plopped it on a tripod and hit record...suffice to say, the shot composition is rather bland. Then the acting, oh god- the acting. Just watch a few minutes and it is obvious that the acting sucks. I could not tell if it was intentionally poor or if they just don't know what they are doing. The film is about a kid trying to do a science project, but he goes crazy and starts killing people. The film has no shame in paying "homage" to other great mad-scientist movies, like THE RE-ANIMATOR and THE FLY (which literally appears on screen as one character watches television.) So the subject matter is very much derivative and, quite frankly, a bit boring.Yet, all of the above being said, I freaking loved this movie. If you can manage to stick it out through the first twenty minutes or so, it may begin to grow on you. Leopold V. Medley, the kid who wrote, directed, produced, edited, and starred in this film does begin to show a little charisma around the halfway mark. The film is unrelentlessly silly, with plush cats and muzzle flares made in MS paint. But, if you can ease into the manic style of this film, you may like it a lot. The chaos that ensues in the latter act is rather funny to watch, and the performance of one kid playing a dirty, corrupt cop, is uninspired but nevertheless hilarious. Yes, The Ballad of Jeffrey is an interesting enigma, a film that should suck on paper, but when you sit back and watch it, it ain't that bad. I'd chock that up to the undeniable talent of Leopold, a very young and obviously inexperienced filmmaker, who clearly had more ambition than talent at the time of this film. It's hard to make a feature film, and Leopold went out and did it. And at the end of the day? It's a pretty darn good flick. Leopold, suffice to say, is going places. If he continues to show this kind of effort and passion, his skills will be honed and I predict that one day, a few years down the road, he'll make a masterpiece. Go ahead and watch The Ballad of Jeffrey, so you can say you knew Leopold when he was just an early teen making flicks with his brother. The Ballad of Jeffrey is short, barely an hour long, and it manages to move quickly. It's hardly boring, even more entertaining than some Hollywood big-budget movies at the Cineplex today. The movie even attempts, dare I say succeeds, at making some jabs of social commentary. The film, at rare times, does seem to be making some point about bullying, youth in the modern world, the police force, and- oh god. I kind of feel stupid trying to analyze this film- it's ridiculous. Ridiculous, amateur, stupid, and silly, but, if you can manage to see through the inexperienced shell- you just might see through to a core of raw potential and talent.At the very least, I can't wait to see what Leopold has in store for us down the road.
randy m
It's not easy to write, direct, and act in a full length feature film, so good on Leopold for making this. I found it advertised on Reddit, and while the film has issues, it's pretty good for what it is. The writing/acting quality is quite bad at times, but absolutely brilliant at others. I found Leopold's character and acting to be well done, but not great. He definitely has the chops, he just needs to develop it. The sound mixing and story development/pacing need to be better in future projects. The cinematography was okay, nothing spectacular, but not bad at all, and probably the most well done part of this film. Overall, a fantastic effort and production for kids with no budget making a film. I hope he realizes that this is not a negative review at all, even though it might come off that way. For a no budget movie, it's showing massive potential that can really only be improved by more budget and knowledge.I hope this kid continues to develop and focuses his energy in school on writing and acting, because I think he has a very bright future.
