Ambition and hustle radiate off the screen like heat from freshly burned coals in Charlie Hamilton and Zachary Ramelan’s feature film debut Sway. Filmed over a seven-day period, there is an energy to the work that can only come from filmmakers who are hungry to make their mark.
Given the tight timelines of the production, it is a testament to the Hamilton and Ramelan’s directorial prowess that they were able to pull off the film with such stylish flare. Predominantly having the events unfold in one location, the duo finds several inventive ways, ranging from specific camera movements to lighting choices in flashbacks, to give the film its pulsing tone.
A film oozing with potential, it is unfortunate that Sway falls into some of the same pitfalls as its titular character when it comes to spinning a tale that spirals out of control.
Waking up on the rooftop patio of his Toronto Condo in only his boxers, Sway (Emmanuel Kabongo) has no recollection of what occurred the night before. Stuck in a mental fog, and with no time to find his bearings, things quickly escalate for the confused man. Not only is a journalist, Lisa (Mishael Morgan), outside his front door waiting to conduct a scheduled interview, which he has clearly forgotten about, but there is also a mysterious woman, Jade (Brittany Raymond), in the married man’s bed.
Complicating matters further is the fact that no one can get a hold of his younger brother, Cy (Tony Ofori), who has recently become a top 5 NFL drafted pick.
Discovering that his brother has relapsed into his old drug habits and ran up a gambling debt with some dangerous people, he tries to make sense of all these recent developments behind the scenes while keeping a sense of composure in front of the reporter.
As Sway and Lisa conduct their interview, which centres around his rags-to-riches rise, the audience slowly gains insight into the businessman and his life. Viewed in the media as a successful family man who overcame poverty and hardship in his youth, and later gave back to his community, it quickly becomes apparent that skeletons, and not just fancy suits, hang in his closet.
Struggling to keep the various strands of his kingdom from unraveling, including fixing the many mistakes his longtime employee and friend Richie (Lovell Adams-Gray) makes, Lisa’s probing questions only pull at the threads further.
Curious about the mysterious death of Cy’s high school football coach and the subsequent disappearance of a key suspect, Lisa believes that Sway may be withholding the pieces of information that could put the full picture together.
Hamilton and Ramelan use the interview to set up the verbal cat and mouse game at their thriller’s core. Stretched in too many directions, Sway’s firm grip of control beings to loosen as the hands of power shift. While the film starts off promising enough, and builds its thrills quickly, Hamilton’s script lays the drama on so thick that the numerous ideas within are often gasping for air.
Touching on everything from addiction to sexual assault to the racism young Black men routinely experience within communities to the ethics of investigative journalists, Sway simply crams in too much into its brisk running time. Although the film wants to highlight the interconnected nature of communities, and the ripple effects that are caused when tragedy occurs, it cannot sustain the full weight of these topics.
The last act alone packs so much into the twisty plot that each new revelation begins to feel more preposterous than the last.
Hamilton and Ramelan clearly display the talent needed to bring the characters to vivid life. They not only get great performances out of Kabongo and Morgan but also show a gift for visual storytelling. Unfortunately, the thrills pumping in Sway’s veins get clotted by its unnecessarily bloated script.
