2 out of 5

Director: Ti West

Ti West is an important filmmaker to have playing around in the thriller / horror genre, willing to make some artistic leaps and pursue a vision. Unfortunately, the plus/minus of this mentality is that it doesn’t always lend itself to enjoyable films. “Trigger Man” comes across as an attempt to boil everything down to a bare minimum (costs, sets, actors) and still make an effective thriller. It succeeds conceptually (that’s that pursuance of vision) but just barely chugs through its 80 minute runtime with the viewer still in tow. Here’s the plot: several friends are out and about in the woods to do some hunting. One of them is the boastful leader type, one of them is the “chill out” type, and one of them has a girl somewhere who his friends are happy to get him away from. They are stereotypes, but humans …are.. generally stereotypes, so they work, and are brought to life with minimal dialogue and explanation, and a realistic balance of emotions. Things go awry when an unseen source starts taking shots at the friends, tracking them through the woods for most of the movie. As soon as these shots ring out, the dialogue stops and the movie turns into a prolonged escape / chase sequence. Is it tense? West does his best to not get too shaky cam with things, and manages to find some nice shots with, again, what must’ve been minimal footage, but its hard for this to build to anything, and indeed, by film’s end… it doesn’t. This adds to the realism of things (real life doesn’t always have a plot) but not really to the enjoyment. If you’re interested in West’s oeuvre, check it out. Otherwise, there’s better to be watched.