Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with one more Radius/TWC panel from this year's Comic-Con. This time we're talking about Joe Lynch's EVERLY, a one-location action spectacular starring a messed up, but determined Salma Hayek fending off wave after wave of assassins sent by her pissed off mob boss ex.
The footage shown had a gritty, low budget feel (not a bad thing) and an energy that reminded me a whole lot of Takashi Miike's better stuff. I felt very proud of myself for noticing that influence and then big mouthed Joe Lynch had to go and name-check Miike's Ichi the Killer on the panel, so now I just look like a copycat.
Anyway, we see Salma dressed only in a slip on the phone with her significant other and realizing that his men in their apartment is going to murder her. Thankfully, she's a badass and makes quick work of them all with some brutal head shots, gut shots, the works. She's not Neo, though. She does get winged by a shot from a dying thug.
Realizing she's trapped in her apartment she calls her mother and wants to pass off a bag of money... she's pretty sure she's not making it out of this alive, but she wants her mom to take the money and run.
We see Salma pick up one of the dead Yakuza thugs machine guns as someone is trying to get into the front door. The door opens and Salma unloads, losing control of the recoil, which sends bullets up into the ceiling. The doorway is empty, but quickly an African American woman in a blonde wig storms in, twirling sais, which Salma (mostly) dodges.
Lynch later said that he pitched this as Die Hard in a single room and that's what it appears to be. Salma takes her lumps, but comes out on top. We saw a montage of moments from the movie, the coolest being Salma shotgunning a bad guy who runs out of an elevator filled with even more bad guys. He flies back into the elevator as Salma throws a grenade in with him. The doors close on the panicking Yakuza just as they all get blown to bits.
I thought this one looked like a lot of fun. It's also refreshing to see this kind of movie being promoted here instead of the generic YA stuff and mid-range studio action stuff.
Here are some highlights from the very short Q&A:
-Apartment is the opposite of Salma's character, who starts off broken and ends up strong. By the end of the movie, the apartment is messed up.
-Camera never leaves the room. No cutting away to the second part of a phone conversation, if there's a conversation in another room we see it through a bullet hole, etc.
-”I barely wear anything throughout the whole film.” -Salma Hayek to many hoots and hollers.
-”It's the perfect date film because there's stuff for the girls, but stuff that will make them close their eyes that guys will like.” - Salma
-Director Joe Lynch hopes people will choose to see the film in a theater over VOD because it's a big audience movie.
Okay, another panel down. Now for the entirety of Fox! Kingsman looked good, y'all! Stay tuned for the wrap up!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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