3 Star

Carnage by the Gunfire Lights.

Writer, director and editor Corey Pearson (Harmony) brings us his first feature film, in this all out action thriller, set in Indonesia in a small town that is ravaged by Pirates. They take what they want, everything from produce to women and children. But they are about to cross the wrong man.

Picture a man who has retired in his forties, he lives on a nice yacht, he moors his yacht in the tropical waters of the Java Sea, near an island where in town he can get his supplies and repairs done. The lucky man is Ryan (Paul O’Brien, Home and Away (TV Series), Project Eden), a man that seems at ease with his simple life, but you can tell there is more to this man and his intense eyes. When he has to come ashore for a repair to a part from his yacht, he is pestered by the young boy Doni (Aji Santosa, Kita Versus Korupsi, Taxi Stories) who offers to do his fetching and carrying, reluctantly he agrees.

Ryan appears to have plenty of cash, as he pays the repair mechanic over the odds to get the job done. He also pays Doni well, which makes his mother Jenti (Agni Pratistha, Chasing the Sun, Pinky Promise) suspicious of this outsider. But with Doni’s insistence, he turns up for dinner at their shack. Over the next few days they all get to know each other better.

Meanwhile, off the coast, the pirates are after new girls to traffic. They cruise around the shacks, searching for the pretty girls and women of the town. Threatening husbands with death if they do not give up their women.

Over at the market, Ryan and Doni are filling up their cart with supplies. Ryan gets Doni to take the helm of the cart and take it back home. The pirates, who are in a rush to get their captives back to their waiting speedboat, do not care about the life of a small worthless boy and his cart, they hit him full on, smashing everything to pieces. Quick acting, Ryan throws a rock at the speeding vehicle, smashing the wing mirror, cutting the driver’s face. Kill Him!

A switch has been flipped in Ryan’s brain, he appears a different man now, ruthless and deadly. The pirates want to cut Ryan to bits, but their machetes are soon turned on to them, with very deadly force. Ryan turns his attention back to the injured Doni, rushing back to Jenti’s to do first aid on the unconscious child. The pirate that didn’t go after Ryan manages to get a photo of him, and his boss Lee (Verdi Solaiman, The Raid, Till Death Do Us Part) has had an all points bulletin put out for a deadly man. Ryan fits that description.

Lee is a driven man as he spent his formative years growing up without his parents, and he believes that the Assassin known as the Message Man is responsible. Now a deadly battle ensues as Lee tasks his pirates to capture and kill Ryan, and to make sure he is kept in the game he takes hostages. The deadly game is on.