Sioux Cloud and Hezues R’s short “Red Cloud” is a film very much in the vein of “The Professional” and “Gone Baby Gone,” a short dramatic thriller that has potential to be a wider more full length story, in the end. “Red Cloud: Deliverance” is a very powerful and engrossing exploration of a man escaping his past and his demons, and in the process is confronted by a young girl facing her own demons on a daily basis.
Alex Kruz gives a fairly engrossing and compelling performance as the enigmatic Jake Red Cloud who enters in to a local house to rent a room and meets Jeannine and her meek daughter Anne. Jake spends his days avoiding human contact, that is until he begins taking a liking to young Anne who craves love and attention and receives nothing from her promiscuous neglectful mother. Breanna Lakatos is able to play off of Kruz well, offering him a friendship he’s never quite encountered in his life of pain and misery, and the two become kindred spirits, even as Jeannine makes a play for Red Cloud, possibly tainting what Ann is holding dear. “Red Cloud” seems to be only a chapter in a larger narrative with a more complex and three dimensional story at hand, while “Deliverance” seems to only offer up a small prologue in the story of Jake Red Cloud and his young friend Ann, both of whom seem to be on a journey of self-discovery in a world filled with violence and misery.
The climax is somewhat shaky as the villains’ performances feel ill-fitted in what is a film basically about a man tending to an unloved girl, but “Red Cloud” is intent on forming an epic journey around Jake Red Cloud, so in the context of the character it melds and leads to an action he may soon regret or use to grow. It’s a very strong and entertaining dramatic thriller and one I found to be ambitious and very strongly written. The intent toward Jake Red Cloud seems to be offering a more spiritual and contemplative anti-hero who seeks to discover something about life after his pain has ended, and as a short introduction in to the character of Jake Red Cloud, “Red Cloud: Deliverance” is a competent and entertaining short drama with a slew of strong performances.