Baseline
is the name of the nightclub run by gangster-type Terry (Jamie Foreman), a man who takes no crap, which tired,
low-rent bouncer Danny (Freddie Connor) learns in the heat of the moment outside when a gunman takes a pot-shot at the
man and Danny's quick thinking leads to the guy missing and coming off worse by being knocked hard to the ground.
Delighted, Terry takes him under his wing and hires him as a dogsbody - and once you're in, it's not easy to get out.
That's not the end of it though, as Terry wants to know who ordered the hit and his henchman tie him up and extract
the information by inflicting gross amounts of pain with sharp implements and knuckledusters. It's no surprise to learn
there's a rival gang on the horizon, and in fact in this script there are few surprises at all.
Club frequenter Jessica (Zoe Tapper, right) hits on Danny, one night while he's on the door, and they end up an item;
Gordon Alexander plays Danny's club colleague Paul and, like Danny, also has dreams of opening his own place one
day, ex-Eastender Kellie Shirley plays Paul's long-suffering girlfriend and ex-Hollyoaks actress Gemma Atkinson
works in Tesco and her role will become apparent as the film progresses.
Baseline is a very violent film and that's its strength. While it keeps you entertained for the 90 minutes, it's
failing is that it's fairly bog-standard stuff and full of cliches - a friendship is tested, loving relationships don't
always work out, Jamie Foreman plays a Cockney heavy (he's about due for a long spell in Eastenders), and one of
the weak links in the chain is Freddie Connor himself. He co-wrote the lacking script and he couldn't really act his
way out of a paper bag. In fact, he sleepwalks through his role like Clive Owen often does, except that Owen has a certain
charm to his performances.
On the plus side, Gordon Alexander excels as a man who starts off with dreams but ends up in more deep shit than
anyone has a right to; and for a feature directorial debut, Brendon O'Loughlin clearly knows what he's doing with
the framing of the scenes and some subtle use of slo-mo to build tension, even if you know what's coming anyway - it just
makes the scene more tense! Great stuff!
Before the film ended I looked on IMDB and saw there's another film, The Grind, with the majority of the main cast
and I was thinking they might all just have got together for another new, and different, film, but it appears the script
for Baseline is adapted from The Grind, so is it just the same film? There doesn't seem a lot of point
to that.
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Blu-ray: 
Presented in the original 2.35:1 anamorphic theatrical ratio, the picture is sharp and detailed with no problems
whatsoever.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
