“Paul Krik’s stylish, darkly comic conspiracy thriller takes its title
from a classified military program alleged to have identified four 9/11
hijackers prior to the terrorist attacks, and borrows its gleaming B&W
look from THE MALTESE FALCON. The film is gorgeously photographed,
briskly paced and strikingly handsome despite an indie-sized budget.”
Ken Fox
TV GUIDE
http://movies.tvguide.com/able-danger/review/295289

“Surprisingly entertaining zero-budget film noir
that effectively mixes pseudo-Hitchcockian theatrics with a hefty dose
of contemporary lefty paranoia.”
NEW YORK MAGAZINE
*Critics Pick*
Sara Cardace
http://nymag.com/listings/movie/able-danger/

“Krik uses flashes of dark comedy, an affection for the film noir genre
and the perfect eyebrow-half-cocked attitude towards his subject matter
to create a fast-paced and entertaining story… With its
black-and-white cinematography and visual imagination (the film mixes in
color dream sequences and text-overwritten surveillance footage)…
Krik’s low-fi riff on the conspiracy thriller has a charm all its own”
Scott Macaulay
FILMMAKER MAGAZINE
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2008/02/rotterdam-able-danger.php

“Knocks along with the steady heartbeat pace of a thriller and is
painted in the languid, low-contrast shadows of a noir. Well Made Film.”
Michele Orange
VILLAGE VOICE
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-10/film/able-danger/

“Able Danger is a slick debut feature…. An update of The Parallax
View… A cinematic x-ray of paranoid mindset… In the long shadow of
noir pastiche, complete with a femme-fatale turn by Elina Löwensohn”
FILM COMMENT MAGAZINE

“NOIR ON ACID. A paranoid fantasy of geek superheroics. Like-minded
theorists may ascend from their basements to rally.”
Jeannette Catsoulis
NY TIMES
http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/movies/11able.html

“Without question, Able Danger is an incredible film that mind-bendingly
combines dark comedy, drama, and intrigue into a neo-noir pastiche
that is all it’s own.

And while the story itself is engaging in it’s ability to interweave
contemporary plot lines with factual data and tried-and-true moments
of chicanery, Able Danger is so well shot that all that good stuff has to
take a back seat. Produced on an indie film budget, writer/director/editor\
Paul Krik seamlessly blends palettes between panoramic vistas of
New York City, claustrophobic moments of up-close intensity, and
heart-beating bike vs. Suburban chases that would make any one
of your hipster conspiracy-theorist friends proud.”
LAist
Fairley Elliot
http://laist.com/2008/10/16/laist_movie_review_able_danger.php

“Krik references film noir, rustling up some heavies and hardboiled
patter here and there. Ironically, the connection is intriguing, given
the wartime stew of anxieties that originally fostered the movies that
came to be known as noir; Krik¹s two main riffstones come from either
end of the lineage, The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Kiss Me Deadly
(1955).”
Nicolas Rapoid
THE L MAGAZINE
http://thelmagazine.com/print.cfm?content_id=4462

“Mildly surreal, mostly black-and-white homage to film noir, set in the
built-in ironic enclave of hipster Brooklyn. Able Danger is a smart and
all-too-conceivable conspiracy thriller that raises serious questions in
less-than-serious ways. Do we really think we know the entire truth
behind 9/11? If so, the movie shows a bridge it might want to sell
youŠ”
Frank Lovece
THE FILM JOURNAL
http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/reviews/article_display.jsp?vnu_conte
nt_id=1003849095

“Paul Krik¹s low-budget indie thriller Able Danger is nicely shot in
tinted b&w hi-def video, slickly mixed, scored and edited almost to the
point of being indistinguishable from this or that Bruckheimer TV show.
And Krik is a keen film student: Many of the film¹s images recall
Welles, Lang, Fuller, Mann, Kubrick, Frankenheimer­ you name it.”
Steven Boone
SPOUT
http://blog.spout.com/2008/09/12/911-conspiracy-movie-for-hi/

“Shot in a high contrast black-and-white that milks maximum atmospheric
effect out of its wide, busy compositions and chiaroscuro lighting…”
Brandon Harris
HAMMER TO NAIL
http://www.hammertonail.com/?p=363

“Shot in black and white and reminiscent of classic ’30s noir films,
Able Danger tracks a Brooklyn bookstore owner (based on the owner of Vox
Pop) and a European femme fatal over bridges and on bikes in the
dangerous search for 9/11 truth.”
Robyn Hillman-Harrigan
FLAVORPILL
http://flavorpill.com/newyork/events/2008/9/11/abel-danger

GAWKER
‘Impressive’
Stu VanAirsdale
http://gawker.com/5161790/its-ok-to-like-things

“Paul Krik’s 9/11-noir Able Danger is a nifty, paranoiac piece of work, a kind
of Maltese Falcon meets JFK rendered in startling monochrome that defies
the far more complicated scenario faced by its protagonist: Adam Nee
plays a Brooklyn bookshop staffer and renowned conspiracy theorist
chipping away at the German connection to the 9/11 terrorists. A mysterious
femme fatale (Elina Löwensohn) drops in from nowhere, exposing the writer
and his colleagues to secret agents, counteragents and all the deadly
cloak-and-dagger mischief they imply. Krik’s deft chemistry of density,
humor and style are all the more admirable for the microbudget that
enabled them; even if you don’t understand a lick of it (and we can’t
say we’ve quite caught up ourselves), we think you’ll appreciate the
opportunity to give it a try.”
DEFAMER
Stu VanAirsdale
http://defamer.gawker.com/5072327/porno-livens-up-weak-halloween-party-at-the-multiplex
“Since film noir’s shadowy dread reflected a genuine post-World War II
existential unease, it makes some sense that a movie about post-9/11
conspiracy theorists would boast a faux-noir style [and] Löwensohn’s
deadpan retro allure brings chiaroscuro authenticity”
LA TIMES
Robert Abele
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/31/entertainment/et-capsules31

Gawker has apparently folded. The erudite authors are moving on to recreate ‘Movieline.’ But they faded not without noticing our little film.  I’m honored ‘Able Danger’ makes the incomparable S.T. VanAirsdale’s short list of preferred movies of 2008. He writes, among other things, “Did you ever hear of Able Danger ?  Impressive.”

http://gawker.com/5161790/its-ok-to-like-things

so what if the list is alphabetical?

http://laist.com/2008/10/16/laist_movie_review_able_danger.php
http://defamer.com/5072327/porno-livens-up-weak-halloween-party-at-the-multiplex
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-capsules31-2008oct31,0,4424385.story
http://www.laweekly.com/2008-10-30/film-tv/movie-reviews-filth-and-wisdom-the-haunting-of-molly-hartley-splinter
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/articles/2008/11/02/able_danger_interview_with_paul_krik.htm

I’m just saying, my heroes, the Coen Bros, didn’t get a RED STAR! I guess because we expect too much from them…

We’re honored to be the picked as the first upcoming film of the Fall Season by the New York Times, right before my second favorite living directors’ new movie — perfect! I still think Print is still cooler than online articles of course, so Click on the Pic of the Print Article for the full page of the article

or click HERE for the NYTimes Online Article.

Filmmaker Magazine is also publishing a list of some of my influences this week.

\

Heads up Able Danger Blog fans, get your free ticket now!

If you’ve been looking for it, here it is. I’m gonna watch Obama talk and then I’ll respond to this article, probably…

I think Dave Gilson actually liked the film as a film but was afraid to admit it openly and could only hint at it? Unfortunately, I didn’t solve all the problems of ‘coherence’ in the 9/11 truth movement well enough for Mr. Gilson… And for the record, Mr. Gilson, I didn’t send you the DVD unsolicited, you asked for it.

Click through on the pix above (yes, you have to click through 2x to get it large enough) to read the article. Or click through here to buy the magazine online for $10. It’s worth every penny. I still love Mother Jones.

Able Danger is fiction, but was inspired in large part Vox Pop. First and foremost Vox Pop is a place to bring your laptop, surf the internet, drink insanely strong fair trade coffee, peruse the bookshelves for books that didn’t seem to appear anywhere else that posed and answered questions I had been wondering why weren’t be answered in the mainstream media, and ultimately where I could meet the community I lived in. Vox Pop is one of those rare businesses with soul.

When I discovered that the owner of the store, Sander Hicks, wrote a 9/11 conspiracy book called ‘The Big Wedding,” my initial reaction was, the same as I imagine most of America’s would still be, I thought, ‘What a kook! He’s wasting his time writing about conspiracy theories?’ It was only because I was such a fan of the cafe itself that I read his book. And that’s when I fell down the rabbit hole. It’s a short book, and it’s entertaining, but it’s a dense big-picture-read chock full of political and personal intrigue. ‘Gonzo Journalism’ is how I first heard it described, It was so well written and well documented that I spent the next year reading and researching 9/11.

Once again, the movie is fiction. The Able Danger story line is right out of a Dashiell Hammett novel. But the Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore is real. The Big Wedding is a real book. The idea was to make a hero out of the man I initially considered a cook, to place his maverick investigative journalism into the context of a Sam Spade adventure. He is the modern day Don Quixote taking on windmill-dragon of our collective understanding of truth as determined by the corporate oligarchies that control mainstream media. If there was a Vox Pop in every community, I think things would be a bit different ’round here.