These days it’s impossible to really declare your liking and disliking for a movie that is not dependent on your moral standings or religious and or political beliefs, especially since many films these days are insistent you choose sides. I fancy myself a professional, a writer, and a film critic who’d never let my beliefs get in the way of critiquing a film. However, with “A Distant Thunder”, I truly felt inclined to voice my own true thoughts when approaching the story.
“A Distant Thunder” has immaculate production values with very good set pieces, and though the star Flora’s performance can be stilted, Director Jonathan Flora’s direction is very good, with atmosphere and engrossing nuance that increases the tension. But “A Distant Thunder” is nothing but a preachy PSA concerning a very controversial topic in today’s world. I would not hesitate in watching a film that is geared towards a certain viewpoint, or political opinion, especially one I didn’t agree with were it an opinion that is openly admitted from the very beginning. Had Flora taken an opportunity to explain from the beginning what he was doing, I wouldn’t have been so disgruntled.
But with “A Distant Thunder”, it disguises itself as a supernatural thriller that really does seem to be heading towards an actual point, yet ends as a manipulative self-righteous practice in giving the audience a sermon. Not since “The Life of David Gale” have I seen such a false, scheming, and blatantly two-faced film posing as one product but revealing itself to be another one altogether. “A Distant Thunder” focuses on our character Anna, a lawyer who has just signed on to take a case concerning the murder of a child, but in spite of warnings from her colleagues to pull away, she continues on and discovers a shocking revelation.
The only true revelation I was given was that “A Distant Thunder” doesn’t examine the issue at hand from both points of view, it’s a bias film that insists on preaching certain thoughts concerning the issue that becomes an underlying theme, and then during the second half creates wild assumptions that really do draw us in to the creators true intentions. Flora never fully takes in to consideration facts that completely disprove his views, and that creates an even more fictional environment in the end. Though, production qualities are well done, the finished product is manipulative and his knowledge of the issue he sets out on the table really does need further examination.
Like the movie, you were vague. You (and the movie) never told us what the “controversial topic” was. Just say it – “abortion”