‘The Lonely Crowd’ Review: It’s A Violent….And Slow First Date

Courtesy of Indie Rights

Having directed two short films (once in 2018 and then six years later in 2024), you could say David St. Clair has become a very ambitious man. It also should be stated that while these two titles were played out in different mediums (one was animated while the other was live action), Red Tape and Madness Unplugged were both out of this world - in a thematic sense, at least.

The former is a digital dystopian horror of sorts and in the latter, everyday electrical outlets somehow plot to cause suffering and destruction upon human beings. I’m just being speculative here but that could very well be the reason why The Lonely Crowd - Mr. St. Clair’s feature directorial debut - is so piecemeal in terms of quality.

While most scenes of this modern times-infused crime thriller tend to be slower and more stretched out than anyone would like, there are certain sequences, specific characters and nuggets of dialogue that show that the director (and writer in this case) just might have been onto something here. Actors Adam Wesley and Taylor Anne Danehower play the two main protagonists - Peter and Ashley.

The two end up on a date after meeting each other on an app and while Ashley has a criminal conspiratorial past that quickly catches up to her, Peter is the one caught up in this sudden cat and mouse, where’s-the-money game with her ex-cohorts. Following this turn of events (from a flirty and tense first date to a no-frills hostage situation), the movie unfortunately unravels any full potential.

While Wesley and Danehower do show off an admirable chemistry as crime buddies turned lovers, the overall movie just needed to be faster to fit a suspense crime conspiracy genre - no matter how unique the premise might have been. Without something consistently strong to keep an audience interested, almost everything feels unnecessarily stretched out.

There is the occasional stylistic scene in The Lonely Crowd - such as when Peter and Ashley are stranded and have to walk through a barren outdoor area (the music and the atmosphere make the scene more surreal than anything else), or when it’s late at night in a hotel room and they dive into their pasts through conversation or all the scenes with Andrew Mena’s Charlie as the hotel receptionist. Admittedly, he should have had a bigger role. He could have been the much needed foil to the seemingly hard boiled starring duo.

The script itself even has moments of greatness too. Such lines like “Why play the online game? The same reason people play slot machines” or “It’s the pitcher who’s the wild card” are really surprising and shining little nuggets. These tidbits and (what's said in the preceding paragraph) undoubtedly prove that St. Clair has what it takes to make a good film.

There are even some moments of shock value later on in the film that help grab the attention of wandering viewers . . .  but this unfortunately doesn't help the movie’s cumbersome runtime go by any faster. Oh and before I forget (which is easy when it comes to the antagonists) - it would have been nice to see some flashbacks of the robbery that this movie was based around.

There’s a bunch of bad guys all gunning for what Ashley possibly has hidden but aside from the climax kill being a comedic tribute to 90s crime movie endings, they are not worth trying to remember in any sort of individualistic sense. After watching The Lonely Crowd from beginning to end, I just don’t think realistic movies are David St. Clair’s forte. Science fiction and societal downward spirals - with some creative gravitas - seem to be more his style and I’ll stay for that.            

I will give The Lonely Crowd a 2 out of 5.

If you want to watch The Lonely Crowd, the movie is now available to stream for free on Youtube, Tubi and Fawesome. If David St. Clair’s previous shorts are more what you’re looking for, Red Tape and Madness Unplugged can both be streamed on Youtube for free as well.