'Trigger Point' & the Future of Movies

Trigger Point is a CIA spy thriller set in Afghanistan starring Josh Dallas (from Thor and the Once Upon a Time TV series) and Vincent Regan (300 and excellent as the villain in Lockout earlier this year). You can't see it in a theater or on DVD or as video on demand from your cable company because it's a web exclusive from the folks over at Break.com, a site usually known for its funny videos.

That's not to say you can't watch this one on TV. If you've got some kind of device that can access YouTube (Blu-ray player, Roku, AppleTV, etc), you can watch it on a big screen and be impressed with the production values for a movie shot on a budget that wouldn't cover the catering bill on Battleship.

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Episode 1

Here's the producers' description of the action:

 CIA Agent Tom Wisher (Josh Dallas) is briefed for a top secret mission to rescue Guy MacMillan, a distinguished US hostage held captive by militants in the Safed Koh mountains on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Wisher goes undercover as a mercenary and is hired in Peshawar to protect three Russian arms dealers. His CIA "handler" Bill Blake (Vincent Regan) accompanies him to the region , and is in contact periodically to debrief. The Russians have two cases to deliver to the Islamist insurgents, and Wisher suspects these extremists are the same group that have taken MacMillan hostage. En route to the destination, Wisher learns from Blake that the cases contain Uranium and is instructed to abandon MacMillan and allow the trade to go through. But Wisher has never been one to obey instructions unquestioningly..

The whole thing is about 20 minutes long, so it's short on plot and long on action. Regan executes his American accent in that flawless way that only well-trained British actors can. The fight scenes are pretty convincing. Josh Dallas doesn't look uncomfortable with a weapon in his hand.

A little digging around online reveals that Trigger Point was shot in Morocco and the UK a couple of years ago as a pilot for a web series directed by Matthias Hoene that was originally going to be called Shadowline.

You guys are likely to have some comments about the plot, which involves a rogue element in the agency that sees fit to make weapons deals with terrorists, but the show really does point the way things are going: creative writers and directors are learning how to use technology to reduce their budgets and tell a story for a fraction of the cost that big studios or TV networks spend. Once one of these things busts out, all hell is going to break loose in Hollywood.

If you want to find out what happens to Tom Wisher, you can watch the second episode over at the HardCoded YouTube page or check it out below.

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Episode 2

Story Continues