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Rating:
A paranoid thriller with the single-minded real-time intensity of The Blair Witch Project, Cavite is certainly notable for its efficiency and blunt effectiveness. Ian Gamazon and Neill Dela Llana, who co-wrote and co-directed the digital video production, have certainly gotten bang for their buck. Gamazon also turns in a credible performance as Adam, the plot's victim, who is onscreen for nearly the entire running time of the movie. The other star of Cavite is the vibrantly presented street life of the impoverished areas near Manila where it was shot. Cavite, with its constantly moving camera nervously darting around Adam and everything he encounters, presents a frightened lost tourist's view of the Philippines, appropriate because Adam, a Filipino-American, seems to have lost touch with his culture. When the unseen terrorist on the other end of the phone line taunts him, asking him why he refuses to speak Tagalog, Adam defensively responds, in English, that he's "not comfortable" with the language. For all of its frightening effectiveness in delineating Adam's plight and maintaining a tight grip on the audience's interest, the movie overreaches in its thematic engagement with Islamist terrorism. Gamazon and Dela Llana get pretty specific about their terrorist villain's motives, as he lectures Adam about the deprivation and decay of the world he's left behind. That visceral ugliness overwhelms the Cavite's slight B-movie structure and, combined with a banal stateside coda, lends an unfortunate exploitative quality to the movie. The filmmakers' resourcefulness merits the praise they've earned with Cavite, but there's also a certain unseemliness to the endeavor that is difficult to dismiss. Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

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