What Do I Do Now

Silent Panic
Stars: Sean Nateghi, Joseph Martinez, Jay Habre, Constance Brenneman, Juliet Frew, Helene Udy, Diesel Miranda, Jeff Dowd, Cadence Holland and Cade Daniel
Director/Scriptwriter: Kyle Schadt
Composer: Field Observations
Cinematography: Jordan Rennert
Viral Man Productions
Rating: not rated but could be R for profanity
Running length: 97 Minutes

The phrase, “what do I do now” is heard every day. One likes to think they are able to do the right thing in a situation. Someone falls, help them up---a wallet drops from a woman’s purse---pick it up and give it back to her, and so on. However, when something is really unexpected and out of the blue, then what?  What senses take over?  The “I will help” sense or the “self-preservation” sense.  Writer/director Kyle Schadt gives the audience one version of “what do I do now.”

Three male friends go on an overnight camping trip. They are not near their car. The next day, they open the car trunk to put gear in and---find the dead body of a young woman. From now on, we will see what senses prevail. The car owner, Eagle (Sean Nateghi) has been released from prison and doesn’t want to go back.  He immediately reasons this is a bad situation. Dominic (Jay Habre) is the hesitant one about anything, and the third man, Bobby (Joseph Martinez) wants action. From here on, the situation is tangled with their extended personal lives and Eagle’s wife, Robin (Constance Brenneman), Bobby’s Mother (Helene Udy), his son and Dominic and a young girl at a bar. What no one does---is go to the police or to reason that a murderer is getting away and who is missing this young woman? “What do I do now” is wandering astray into the land of “what benefits me.”  Makes one wonder what you would do in this situation?

The three main actors, Sean Nateghi, Joseph Martinez and Jay Habre show their friendship at first, and though the discovery of the body is a shock, there is a thread that holds them together---a we-are-all-in-this-together scenario. Sean Nateghi as Eagle, the man who won’t go back to prison is acted on the edge by Nateghi and you sense the tension. Joseph Martinez as Bobby, a single Dad, is in the middle of the group and doesn’t know which way to turn. His confusion is brought out by body language, more so, than the other characters, who are trying to be calm. Jay Habre as Dominic, is the peacemaker, but as he continues to rationalize, it is more the piece-maker as relationships fray. Constance Brenneman as Robin, Eagle’s wife, readily accepts his explanations for everything, though at each scene her face shows more tension than previously, layer upon layer of “what is going on here?”  With the exception of Jeff Dowd as Frank, a former drug dealer---and Dowd steals his scenes--- this is a four-person scenario, with three in the circle and one not

The many directions of the script caught me. Just when you think something is going to happen by a hair’s breadth, it doesn’t, and something else occurs. The graphics at the beginning of the film are well done as is the opening music, though later in the film, the soundtrack does overwhelm the movie-goer in key places of the movie. One night out with the boys and lives are forever changed--- just like tossing a pebble into a pond and the ripples continue, with each ripple breaking the surface and going on and on.

Copyright 2020 Marie Asner