24 Exposures

Throughout, Joe Swanberg connects Generation Y's fetish for past pop-cultural kitsch to its attending sexual insecurities.

This latest, a thriller about a photographer who might be a killer, is wild pop fly that disappears in the stands.

24 Exposures is a transparent auto-critique (or self-justification, depending on how you look at it) in the form of a rather vague thriller, and doesn’t work particularly well in either mode.

24 Exposures plays like an exercise. With a thin plot — the usual parade of possible killers — it falls to the actors to provide zing.

This brief, loosely-knit film never builds any empathy or tension.

There’s not much difference between this nudity-packed yet remarkably dull crime drama and the ’90s-vintage, sleazy pay-cable erotic thrillers it’s referencing, if not emulating.

The result isn't fresh and realistic, though; it's clumsy and stilted. Improvised dialogue can work wonderfully if the actors have a solid feel for their characters, but everyone here seems rushed and uncomfortable.