Content
The writing for When the Smoke Clears is very believable, as it is based on the real story from the filmmaker’s life, with no noticeable plot holes within the story. The story pulls you in and compels you to find out what happens to everyone involved, which is always a sign of excellence.
In my first critique, I noticed that there was really only one noticeable problem spot in regards to the story flow. Early on in the movie, there is one rambling narration where Chris explains about how Shawn and Kevin used to know one another, which was very long, improv sounding, and confusing. I also noted that the mic used to record it sounded like it was on the camera mic, as opposed to with a shotgun mic. Well, Mr. Shahin re-recorded this section and re-cut it to make it shorter, which does help. Unfortunately, the most important part of the story, that Kevin robbbed Shawn, which is helps set in motion the rest of the movie's chain of events, is kind of rushed through toward the end.
The acting in this film ranges from on the edge of believable to really strong, with most of it being quite believable. The main actor, Mario Angelo, does a fairly convincing job of playing the troubled main character, Chris, in a way that seems believable and understandable. Raj Garewell does an exceptional job playing the perpetually foggy stoner, Shawn, and rapper Cuffs does a pretty decent job playing the alcohol addicted old friend, Carlos, that is often the voice of reason and ethos for Chris as he debates where he wants to go in this world.
However, possibly the most startling acting in the film comes from the filmmaker himself. Most filmmakers would play their actual character if they were going to act in a film based on their life, but not Michael Shahin. Instead, he chose to portray the role of Ray, who is based on his own best friend who eventually committed suicide rather than go to prison. I can’t imagine how hard that would be for a director to delve into that much personal grief in the midst of a film or for an actor to put on the “skin” of one of their recently deceased friends. The fact that Shahin is able to pull off the character as convincingly as he does is a credit to him in both roles.
While the main roles are very convincing, the smaller roles are a little sketchier. Both Chris’s father and Shawn’s mother stretch believability a little bit due to their portrayals of their parts, but nothing that will derail the plot of the film.
Obviously, when you’re basing things on a true account, the ending has a little different requirement than it does in a normal film. However, it still requires that the film has been told in such a way that it makes sense, and, in When the Smoke Clears, it does. The ending makes sense and leaves you with the hope that comes from a survivor’s tale, but a reminder of the old saying: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Visual Look
The visual look of When the Smoke Clears is really quite amazing. In order to tell Shahin’s tale, DP Jason Bagley put the camera in some of the most creative areas I’ve seen in a film. Traveling from inside a refrigerator to inside a trunk of a car to underneath lines of coke being snorted, this camera went more places than I can recall seeing a camera go in a single film. Some of the shots are similar to those seen in Pulp Fiction, Snatch, and Requiem for a Dream, but none of these films sported as many unusual and creative shots as When the Smoke Clears. This is even more impressive when you realize that it was shot with Canon’s XL1-S, which has the rightfully cumbersome nickname of “The Chainsaw” in the industry. Having shot my first film and part of my second with this camera, I can express additional admiration for Bagley and Shahin’s creativity, as this camera is large, unwieldy, and has an awful tendency to go into auto-shutoff mode if you take too long setting up a shot!
The lighting in this film was quite good, with realistic placement of lights to simulate known lighting sources. There were some lighting consistency issues in some of the more complex areas, like the club the film opens in. Largely, these issues involved certain shots being brighter and, in the club, different tinted than the corresponding shots. This can be corrected fairly easily by lowering the levels of the lighter shots in FCP, and then color matching the tone when needed. [Note to the Director: Make sure to adjust the midtones and lows as well as the highs when you adjust the levels and tints, as simply lowering the highs on these shots won’t look quite right.]
Other than those minor issues, the only real noticeable scene that had a problem with lighting was in one very creative shot in which the film’s gaffer had placed a light behind a ceiling fan for a conversation between Ray and his younger brother. While this lighting gave an awesome shadow of the fan spinning above over both characters, the scene lacked fill lighting below, so that the shadow was oppressively overpowering. This caused the fan’s spinning shadow to distract from the scene itself. To prevent this in a similar shot in the future, make sure to provide at least a soft fill light below the fan to prevent the rotating shadow from becoming too overt.
