Winner of the Jury Award at the 2012 Beverly Hills Film Festival and a Distinguished Award of Merit at the 2011 Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival, Christian Filippella's Silver Case stars Academy Award nominee Eric Roberts as the "Senator," a powerful Tinseltown producer who hatches a plan to undermine the future success of a shady archrival, the Master (Brad Light), in just about every way imaginable. It all begins with, you guessed it, a silver case. In this case, a silver briefcase that ends up going missing and unleashing a chain of events in an effort to get the silver case back.

Mostly because of my mad love for all things Eric Roberts, I found myself really wanting to love Silver Case. The film is written with tremendous energy and a surprising amount of humor by Filipella and Jason White, and the duo clearly knows their way around dialogue and, even moreso, character development. While the film lacks a consistent structure and often feels like it meanders in too many different directions, the film's strong cast and stylish design almost makes up for any lackings.

How much can you diss a film that has an actor named Vincent De Paul?

In case you're wondering, he's not a saint.

Silver Case suffers mainly because it seems like no one can decide exactly when and where the film needs to be cut. The meandering storyline leads to too many characters being introduced and, perhaps worst of all, the film's central story ends up feeling diluted because it gets shorted on time. Silver Case is also one of those films that will inevitably bring to mind other films. In this case, that's not really a great thing because the film really never distinguishes itself or serves up a unique voice. In essence, it's a decent copy of better films.

This is not to say, however, that all is bad within Silver Case. The central story itself is intriguing, and despite being saddled with an uneven story it would be impossible to not appreciate the performance from Eric Roberts and his chemistry with Brad Light. While the film was obviously made on a lower budget, the film's production quality is generally solid with special kudos going for Philipp Fera's production design and the original music from Roberto Boarini and Cody Westheimer.

Silver Case doesn't quite live up to its star power, but it's still a decent action flick with a couple of fine performances and an indie vibe that will likely please fans of low budget action flicks. For more information on the film, visit the Breaking Glass Pictures website.


© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic