The moral of the story is, never let an entertainment lawyer direct an independent film. Dean Silvers has been the legal mastermind and executive producer behind numerous quality projects, including Flirting With Disaster and Manny & Lo. Well, he decided one day that it would be just great to make his own movie. Thus was born The Atlantis Conspiracy, also known by its alternate title of Rock the Boat.
He certainly surrounded himself with good people, casting Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan) as some sort of lunatic homeless guy that hangs out in the park and befriends a righteous young lawyer (fetching Amanda Donahoe, Dark Obsession). The story doesn't really seem to be about our man Davies, who gave himself bleached blonde hair for the role and a really weird twitch. Our heroine lawyer is fighting to save the career of her legal partner (Hal Hartley regular Bill Sage), an environmental crusader going to jail for a crime he may not have committed. When their other partner turns up dead, she turns up the heat.
Good luck sitting through this one, kids. If the banal voice-overs don't get you, the trinkly piano music will. Within fifteen or twenty minutes, the realization kicks in that nothing will really happen during this movie which is remotely cinematic, funny, clever, suspenseful, or even inherently dramatic. Actors come and go, wandering around the New York locations, talking about legal this and that. The characterizations are so thin as to be nondescript.
The Atlantis Conspiracy can be found as part of the First Rites series, which allows for no-budget and low-budget distribution in Hollywood Video chains. It's a great opportunity to see emerging filmmakers from outside the Hollywood system -- and I mean way outside. The truly independent equal the crazy brave and gutsy filmmakers making stuff either too potent for prime time or pure crap that should never see the light of day. When you rent one of these videos, you're taking a chance. You may end up with something as thoroughly awful as Dean Silvers' directorial debut.
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