Modern day cinema accustomed us with the fierce and brave look of the law officers, leaving the mellow side rarely in the spotlight. In Partners, Jesse Knight and writer Darren W. Conrad managed to focus not only on the major and extreme cases cops encounter, but on their live with ups and downs and also on their humane side, something we never see in this kind of movies.
The first thing we noticed in this feature was the score – neat and dramatic, setting the right mood for the upcoming events. In general, in movies like these we really appreciate the original scores made to fit the narrative, and that is because it looks like the directors really put an effort in their film in regards to such aspects.
The main characters John Walker (Darren W. Conrad) and Mandy Kain (Candace Blachard) are perfectly created to reveal more than the uniform shows. Introducing their personal life into the plot made everything more viewer-friendly and we are entitled to say that ‘Partners’ is a great movie for the whole family not only because of the acting and great cinematography but also for the theme, raising awareness upon social issues.
Even though this feature is not the police thriller everyone expected – with lots of crimes, blood, bodies and over the top action, it has the power to keep you in suspense from the beginning until the end. It is interesting how Jesse Knight approached Darren W. Conrad’s script to make everything feel natural – the spotlight is divided between the job outside the police uniform and the feelings hidden under the police badge. Although it has the design and the production of a Hollywood movie, ‘Partners’ is in fact a low-budget indie film with a great potential even though it focuses on a “nasty” theme. It is hard to anticipate this, and we may be wrong at some point but this movie is good enough not to be commercial. And it is a known fact that few deep movies became a commercial success; most of these features are made for a certain public with certain expectations and tastes.
There are certain movies you begin to fall in love with while watching; the melancholy and the aesthetic reverie made ‘Partners’ the kind of film we’ve expected in our festival for quite a while.
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