Dashcam

People are going to believe whatever they want to believe.  That statement, considering our current political and pandemic environment, has never been more true than it is today as isolation has soaked into our collective consciousness. Alongside confusion, virtual gatherings, and disturbing video evidence of police brutality, these are indeed trying times which is why writer/director Christian Nilsson’s Dashcam feels so FRESH and RAW.

"inspired by the HERE and the NOW of our pandemic lives as Halloween quickly approaches, the political climate continues to heat up, and essential deliveries to stores continue to be interrupted or non-existent"


Is this effort to connect the conspiratorial dots all just about one poor dude’s dumb luck or is it the breaking story of the year?  One NYC news video editor is about to find out as digital files are emailed to them that he was never meant to see.

Dashcam is what happens when Jake (Eric Tabach, Blue Bloods) - a timid video editor at a local news channel who fantasizes about becoming a reporter - puts together a video piece involving a political figure (Larry Fessenden, Dementer, Jakob’s Wife) and is sent video evidence which seems to contradict the official story from the governor’s office.  Working with Adobe Premiere and other tech, he pieces together a very interesting narrative that results in a growing paranoia as phones, televisions, and even Audition become his tools toward the claustrophobic and very troubling truth.

Working alone from his small apartment in NYC, Jake uses his skills as an editor to analyze the footage and piece together the truth behind what actually happened.  It is a harrowing journey that evolves into a nail-biter the further and further he gets into the actual content of the conspiracy.  Is this a political assassination?Dashcam

Dashcam is a paranoid-inducing thriller that, while taking its investigative and paranoid-driven cues from Antonioni's Blow-Up, De Palma's Blow Out, Coppola's The Conversation, and Pakula's Klute, is more inspired by the HERE and the NOW of our pandemic lives as Halloween quickly approaches, the political climate continues to heat up, and essential deliveries to stores continue to be interrupted or non-existent.  We, as a captive audience to this frustration, can certainly relate to Jake’s journey down the rabbit hole of paranoid conspiracy theories.  It's easy enough to doubt the official word, especially when the video evidence suggests otherwise.

Nilsson, an Emmy Award-winning video journalist and producer, and the award-winning director behind Unsubscribe, the $0 budget short film that became the #1 movie in the American box office in 2020, returns with a psychological thriller that has a video editor seeing things that might not possibly be there?  Or is this wannabe news reporter about to uncover a conspiracy that some believe is truly behind the motives of a routine traffic stop that resulted in the death of a police officer?

Also starring Zachary Booth (The Good Fight), Scott Aiello (Billions), Noa Fisher (Uncut Gems) and Giullian Yao Gioiello (Scream : The TV Series), Dashcam is available On Digital October 15 from Kamikaze Dogfight and Gravitas Ventures.

3/5 stars

 Film Details

Dashcam

MPAA Rating: Unrated.
Runtime:
77 mins
Director
: Rob Savage
Writer:
Gemma Hurley;Rob Savage;Jed Shepherd
Cast:
Faith Kiggundu; Seylan Baxter; Amar Chadha-Patel
Genre
: Comedy | Crime
Tagline:
We've Been Lied to.
Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: Kamikaze Dogfight and Gravitas Ventures
Official Site:
Release Date: October 15, 2021
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: Dashcam is a stunning psychological thriller that follows Jake (Eric Tabach, “Blue Bloods”)—a timid video editor at a local news channel who fantasizes about becoming a reporter. While editing a piece on a routine traffic stop that resulted in the death of a police officer and a major political official (Larry Fessenden, Dementer, Jakob’s Wife), Jake is inadvertently sent dashcam video evidence that tells a completely different story. Working alone from his small apartment in NYC, Jake uses his skills as an editor to analyze the footage and piece together the truth behind what actually happened. Has Jake uncovered a conspiracy that he can break on the morning news? Or is he seeing things that aren’t really there?

Art

Dashcam