Citizen Duane DVD
Douglas Smith stars as Duane Balfour who strives to prove his deceased father actually was right and the town is going to be destroyed due to over mining.
Film making 13/25
Video 16/25
Audio 16/25
Bonus Features 3/25
Total 48/100
Citizen Duane takes up shortly after Duane's father is killed by the police when he over enthusiastically tries to convince the town of the dangers they face. Duane's father was a geologist and tried to warn the town of the danger literally from the rooftops and the police shot him down.
Duane's family is trying to move on but Duane sees the truth behind his father's plight and starts out the film trying to topple the Milton family empire. Mayor Milton has been mayor of their small town forever and her family runs just about everything there including the schools political world.
Chad Milton is the schools bully and now that Duane lost the class president election to Chad he sets his goals higher and runs for mayor against Kelly Milton, Chads grandmother. When he finds out he is not cut out for higher office and concedes the election after the movie explores all kinds of young adult mishaps and mayhem the towns ridge collapses just like Duane's father predicted.
Mayor Milton has a heart attack and dies before the election results can be announced and the new mayor is the homeless town drunk. It seems to make the election a real one the Mayor puts the town drunk up for election against her so she is an easy win.
With Duane removing himself before the election was over and the death of the now deceased Milton the drunk wins the election by default. Duane is now over his father's death, a little help from the fact that he was right, and moves on with being a more normal teen.
The story is here but a little moving around of plot and a bit of an improvement on some back story, like the fathers standing on his roof naked lamenting the inevitable collapse of the ridge could have been better. The film does a good job of exploring the pitfalls of young adulthood and growing pains associated with the common teenager but with the silly way the film shows the family it misses the mark.
Citizen Duane is a decent movie but really stands as a low point in film as they took some things in a silly direction instead of trying to be a bit more serious with the plot. Other than this the film would have been decent enough as the video and audio are good but not much better than Indie film quality.
The reviewer screening DVD I received did not have any extras to speak of other than cast and crew biographies and this is probably all that will make it to the DVD release. The films audio and video quality are good in that low budget way but it is definitely viewable and even enjoyable at times.
If the plot had taken just a couple more scenes and parts a little more seriously the film would have been a lot better, you could almost smell the awards here. The plot just did not lend itself to the caliber of a quality film which was a shame as you could almost feel the possibilities.
Citizen Duane is worth a rental but a purchase is probably just too much to ask for as the film just misses the mark and falls below average.