By the time the film finally came out in a handful of theatres in 2007 (having premiered two years before at TIFF, where I can’t imagine it was particularly well-received), Liotta was taking moustache-twirling villain roles in Uwe Boll movies and LL Cool J had gone back to being LL Cool J.
#JOLENE BLALOCK SLOW BURN FULL#
He shot the film in 2003, back when Ray Liotta was still seen as a viable lead and LL Cool J was making a slight bid for legitimacy by going with his full name, James Todd Smith. Wayne Beach’s Slow Burn floats the idea that it’s set in an economically depressed, crime-ridden city where corruption runs deep, even if the final product betrays the film’s low budget and long gestation period.īeach makes his directorial debut here he was mostly known as a screenwriter beforehand, having even penned my last Made in MTL entry The Art of War. Montreal tends to be quaint and European on screen, more likely to be filled with cobblestone streets and high-ceilinged lofts than concrete playgrounds and dirt-littered lots. There’s a mostly practical reason for that: our inner-city doesn’t have too many of the required characteristics to stand in for the roughest areas of New York or Chicago. It’s rare that Montreal has represented the inner-city in its screen career, especially from the 1990s on. Character actors Frank Schorpion and Donny Falsetti are periodically glimpsed as cops while Arthur Holden and Richard Jutras play some nefarious, bowtie-wearing corrupt bigwigs.
Notable local talent: It’s a pretty small cast for such a convoluted thriller in fact, it’s surprising how few recognizable local names are in the credits considering the film was 100 per cent shot here. It’s not until the very ending, where the ever-present Farine Five Roses sign pops up in the skyline, that we get confirmation that the film was mostly shot around Griffintown and Little Burgundy. There’s a flashback scene that sees Jolene Blalock filmed through the coloured glass of the Palais des congrès and another flashback of a fundraising party that was shot in a loft in the eastern part of Mile End (de Gaspé/Casgrain, as evidenced by the railroad glimpsed in the background). Most egregious local landmark: Since Slow Burn takes place over a single night, all of the exterior shots are extremely dimly lit and difficult to make out. There’s never any confirmation either way.
#JOLENE BLALOCK SLOW BURN SERIES#
Jolene Blalock, LL Cool J, Mekhi Phifer and Ray LiottaĪlex Rose’s Made in MTL is a series exploring films from the vaults shot and/or set in Montreal.ĭoes Montreal play itself? Even though it’s never explicitly said in the film, the director mentions on the commentary that the idea for Slow Burn was loosely inspired by Chicago turf wars and the Cabrini-Green projects.
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