One of the major mistakes independent filmmakers always make is that instead of going out and making a movie that’s unique and different they settle for the tired story about breaking into Hollywood. Local Baltimore boy Jimmy Duke Traynor has made dozens of self-financed movies over the last few years, none of which tackled this tired subject so it was inevitable that Traynor would take a stab at it in his latest, Welcome Home: The Jay Randall Story and put his own unique, fun, and twisted spin on it.
I’ll admit the first 20 minutes of this movie was slow and cliche filled, but it turned out to be a great set up for the last half of the film. As with most self financed directors he does everything here including Write, Direct and Act in it. His actors provided all the various locations for the movie. Out of everything he’s done to date this is probably his most well rounded story. Yeah it goes off into a surprising direction in the middle but it’s all set up and flows almost perfectly. He could actually have a “franchise” with the Jay Randall character.
So what’s this movie about? It’s about revenge and come to think of it several of Jimmy’s movies ultimately end up being about revenge. Welcome is a fun Slasher flick about a guy who is fed up with being called a loser and whiner by his family and so-called friends, he accidently stumbles upon the one thing he’s actually good at – killing his critics. I told Jimmy I was scared to write this review because he’d go off on me and that under no circumstances would I attend one of his parties. As an actor Jimmy manages to pull this off pretty well, yeah some of his expressions come across as cheesy but it fits the tone of this movie.
As a Director it looked to me like Jimmy is improving by leaps and bounds with each film. How he manages to put together such a large crew is beyond me, but it’s impressive. He’s using, I think, a completely different cast with this film and his shots are better, I’d like to see him take some more non-traditional shot setups, but there’s nothing wrong with his blocking choices. A special shout out should go to whoever was responsible for the Score and Soundtrack. The music and score was perfect for this material and went a lot to adding an extra layer of professionalism to the production.
The one thing he can’t escape though, is he’s using a “crappy” camera and can’t get away for the “shot on video” look. It would be really interesting to see what he could do if he had a real camera like a Canon GL2 or even a 16 millimeter. He makes do with what he has to work with and I can’t help but admire that. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Welcome Home: The Jay Randall story, Jimmy has something here and should be his most successful film to date. For more information on Jimmy Traynor and Welcome Home: The Jay Randall Story click here.
Final Grade B
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 04.18.2010