As Good As It Gets

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Directorial Debut of Rich Riedel is a winner. A minuscule budget doesn't hamper the fun as a group of friends head out to the woods for a little r & r and run into the unexpected. Yeah, we've seen this type of story played out before in the action and horror genres (this one , strictly action), but Riedel's version puts a fresh twist on it. He keeps you guessing as the woods seem to be more populated with friends turned enemies turned friends then one would imagine. For a group of unknowns, the actors deliver believable performances. The camera is always in the right place and Riedel ratchets up the tension effectively. It seems like these type of straight ahead action pieces are a thing of the past, what with everyone trying to blend genres and "Tarantino" the story lines and dialog (often with unwatchable results). In many ways, Target Practice is a valentine to the action films of yore. He doesn't try to reshape the genre, he just hits all the right beats at the right times. A blast.

This is a terrific picture with great action, suspense, and atmosphere.Director Rich Riedel not only understands the impact of flashy, noisy gun play, he also gets the importance of silence as an almost unbearable agent of tension. Excellent performances by all of the cast. And a brilliant use of location where he transforms the great outdoors into Hell. I first saw this picture as an Executive Board member for one of the many festivals that screened it. Board enthusiasm for TARGET PRACTICE was robust and unanimous, and the film was a huge audience favorite. See it!

all you Indies out there i would recommend seeing this one. tight editing and good cam work produces a nice action flick. saw it at Burbank and then again last month at a screening. goes to show what can be done with a smaller budget and some talent! if you dig Indies, like action, or you are becoming a filmmaker i would highly recommend seeing this film. for fun or education... good flick. i am glad to see that they are getting a good festival push. latest i heard the film is screening in two festivals Georgia and Honolulu... so good luck to them on those. keep an eye out for one of the stars, good guy and future action star Joey Lanai who has a good performance... director has got a good future in front of him.. hope to see him do some more action films.

I saw this movie 2 times, at a film festival in Hollywood and then another one in Burbank. I really liked it but I sure wouldn't call it "fun," it's just really intense and suspenseful and actually pretty scary at parts. Almost like a horror movie. People were covering their eyes! I wasn't expecting that. I really liked the story, the whole idea about these terrorist camps in the woods. There's a lot of news reports on these places. I'm surprised some big studio didn't make a movie like this already. I'm also pretty surprised the FBI or whatever isn't doing more about the real camps.It starts out with these guys going on a fishing trip in the mountains. They almost hit a car that someone left in the middle of the road and they decide to go back and see if someone needed help or something. Bad call! Next thing you know, somebody's using them for target practice. See? Only it's like a LOT of somebody's, they're getting shot at from unseen snipers in the trees and the bullets are coming from every direction.Rest of the movie shows the guys fighting for survival, but there's a lot of twists and turns that I don't want to give away because I don't want to set off the Spoiler Police! But it's just a really good, really suspenseful little movie that I liked so much the first time, I took some more people the second time and they really liked it, too. It sure isn't "fun," though!