TNA No Surrender 2009 (2009)

These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.

I was able to sit down and talk with up and coming producer and director Ryan Polomski who talked about his latest project Raymond Lewis: LA Legend.  It's a documentary about basketball star Raymond Lewis and here is what I found out.

The 'Black Adam' story is a blander copy of 'The Mummy', 'Moon Knight', and other Egyptian films made by Hollywood, taking place in the fictional Middle Eastern Kahndaq.

As Andrew’s life begins to change, his passion for drumming soon becomes a spiraling obsession in the pursuit of perfection. Through the use of disturbing and abusive training methods, Fletcher puts Andrew through emotional and physical agony.

Gritty and bleak are the best words to describe this film. There’s nothing happy about it.

Set against the backdrop of the Jim Crow era, the film offers layered representation.