DVD review: Target Practice (2008)

5 blue-collar friends are on a weekend fishing trip - and the hell that's unleashed upon them when they almost run into a car that's been abandoned in the middle of an isolated mountain road. Stopping to see if anyone needs their help, they inadvertently stumble into the middle of an undercover operation involving a CIA agent and a hidden training camp for homegrown terrorists (molded after real-life, recent discoveries in both the U.S. and Canada). Suddenly, these 5 regular, everyday guys find themselves way out of their league, fighting a bloody battle against a cunning, well-trained, brutal enemy that knows the rugged terrain like the back of its hand. Target Practice is written, edited, co-produced and directed by Richmond Riedel. I like the premise, the atmosphere of tension and terror is pretty good at first when we don´t know who the enemy is and in my opinion it would have benefitted the film greatly if the shooters would have remained unseen and only been revealed towards the end of the film. The sound is pretty bad at times which makes it hard to hear dialogue, the camera work and editing is decent, there is good use of the wilderness. The acting is mostly decent but there sure are some really poor acting on display also. After a strong start the pacing slows down but the film never gets boring. The are gore in the form of juicy squibs as people get shot, it seems to be all practical gore make-up fx and looks pretty good most of the time.
This review is based upon the region 1 DVD release from Big Screen.
Rating: 4 out of 7. Target Practice is a pretty good indie action film. Looking forward to see what Richmond Riedel comes up with next.

/JL