Feedback - Blu-ray

Movie: Controversial radio talker Jarvis Dolan (Eddie Marsan) is used to people hating him for his often drastic words. Just recently, he's even been kidnapped. Still, he doesn't let people stop him from talking. Jarvis gives his politically incorrect opinion again this evening without thinking about whether he will offend someone with it. But then something happens that actually silences Jarvis: two masked men storm the station and threaten to kill Jarvis' staff if he doesn't stay on the air. But at that point, the talker has no idea what's actually behind the attack.

Feedback, the directorial debut of Spaniard Pedro C. Alonso, is a nasty little chamber drama that expertly lures the viewer onto a false trail, increasingly blurring the lines between good and evil, right and wrong. If the roles at the beginning seem relatively clearly distributed, it looks quite different at the end. Granted, the motives of the masked intruders in no way justify their actions. But their revelation significantly shifts the viewer's perspective on Jarvis, which also makes the events of the final act feel quite different than they did at the beginning.

You're sort of thrust into a moral quandary here that raises some interesting questions. The fact that it all takes place in a very confined space intensifies the effect immensely. Admittedly, especially in the middle of the movie there are a couple of small lenghts. But fortunately, these tough moments are few and far between. For long stretches of the running time, Alonso manages very well to maintain the tension, before he lets the whole thing end in a bitterly cynical finale.

If you like nasty little thrillers and don't mind a very reduced production, Feedback can really be recommended to you. Especially since Eddie Marsan delivers a really strong performance, whose genius actually only becomes obvious at the very end. For this there is, with small deductions in the B grade, a more than deserved worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The action takes place mostly in the darkened radio studio. Still, even minor details are easily discernible. The coloration of the absolutely clean picture can also convince. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is primarily determined by the dialogues, but definitely has a few pleasantly powerful moments to offer, in which also the surround boxes of the home theater system come into play. Good!

Extras: The Blu-ray has four bonus mini-featurettes about the film (approx. 1:09 min.), the set (approx. 1:37 min.), the characters (approx. 1:57 min.), and the makeup and special effects (approx. 1:44 min.). Obviously, due to the extreme brevity, these glimpses into the production can't go into depth. However, the bits about the set and effects are still worth watching. A trailer show closes the small bonus package then already.

Conclusion: Feedback is a suspenseful, sometimes quite bloody chamber play, which skillfully blurs the lines between good and evil and comes up with some surprising twists. It's not entirely free of clichés and minor lengths, but the oppressive underlying mood and the intense acting of the cast can pull some things out of it. The Blu-ray presents the film in good picture and sound quality, the bonus material, however, is rather meager. All in all, however, for friends of nasty little thrillers absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp