Betrayed (2018)

I just finished up a film that was done by a man named Harley Wallen. Now, if the name sounds familiar, it should. As an actor, Wallen has fifty film credits to his name. In 2016, Wallen dropped his first feature-length film called Deceitful, that he wrote and directed. Apparently, Wallen likes working behind the camera just as much as in front of it because he’s just dropped his seventh film, that he wrote and directed called Betrayed (2018).

Betrayed is an action/crime/thriller that was written and directed by Harley Wallen. It’s rated NR (not rated) but has language and violence. It has a ninety-eight-minute runtime. Here’s what the story is about. In an effort to control the city the Mayor opens the door to his city to the Russian Mob. Soon after, the mayor realizes that the Russians aren’t going to follow his rules. So the mayor tries to set up the Russians and make way for the Cartel to move in. Unfortunately, the Russian mob catches wind of the mayor’s plan and kidnaps his daughter.

What I liked about the story was Wallen used it to help spread awareness about human trafficking, which is something everyone knows about but isn’t really talked about. The story, for the most part, was good, but the dialogue felt a bit weak in places. Like we need these side characters to talk (for the story), but don’t have anything useful for them to say. Other than that, I dug the story and the characters. I was surprised at how dark the story turned out to be. Yeah, it’s about gangs and human trafficking, but Wallen did a great job at setting a dark tone that fit the movie.

The pace of the movie is a bit slow, but it works to build the suspense. I will say, I was disappointed because things seemed to be building to a big turf war between the Russians and the Cartel. However, instead of a big war, they went a different direction with the ending. Don’t get me wrong, the way the everything ends totally works and brought solid closure to the movie. It just would have been cool to see a big shootout break out. The biggest problem I had with the movie was the shaky camera work. It just kept catching my attention and throwing things off a bit when watching the movie.

Some of the cast is John Savage (The Thin Red Line), Richard Tyson (Black Hawk Down), Billy Wirth (The Lost Boys), Harley Wallen (Bennett’s Song), Sean Rey (Hemlock Grove), Kaiti Wallen (Moving Parts) and Aphrodite Nikolovski (Agramon’s Gate). For the most part, everyone did a good job, acting wise. However, I was really impressed with Sean Rey and what he did with his character. Rey’s character is apart of the mob, but you can tell that it isn’t really something he wants to do, but loyalty keeps him there. Rey does a great job at portraying all of that and creating a character that you end up feeling a bit sorry for in the end.

Now, it was cool seeing Savage, he’s a great actor and bringing his talents to Betrayed was a smart move. Seeing Wirth was a surprise and while he did a good job, he’s not in the movie a whole bunch. Wallen makes for a great bad guy and did a good job adding the grimy gangster element that the movie needed to sell the story.

The special effects were low budget, but it didn’t really take away from the overall of the movie. You really only notice the effects the most during shootouts, but I did like the practical effects they used during the (quick) torture scene.

Sidenote, if you wanna check out Betrayed then here’s so spot you can find it at. Amazon Video, Vudu, Microsoft, Google, PlayStation, and iTunes.