Point and Shoot
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In 2006, Baltimore native Matt VanDyke went on a 3 year motorcycle trip across North Africa and the Middle East in a self-described “crash course on manhood.” Along the way, he became friends with a Libyan man named Nuri. As such, when the revolution broke out in Libya, Matt felt obliged to travel to the country and join his friends in the fight against dictator Muammar Gaddafi. All along the way, Matt videotaped it all. Point and Shoot consists nearly entirely of the footage Matt VanDyke shot on his travels, with an interview with Matt narrating the story. It is explained that Matt videotaped everything as a way to help cope with his obsessive compulsive disorder. Much of the footage is handheld, or shot with a helmet cam, which does result in some motion sickness while watching. The core of the film has Matt “with a gun in one hand, camera in the other,” as joins the Libyan revolution against Gaddafi. Matt’s obsession with filming everything becomes a bit of a issue, since he begins to wonder whether he is a filmmaker or a fighter. Probably one of the more interesting sections of the film involves a first-person view of the conflict, which almost made the film feel like a real life version of the videogame Call of Duty. There was also an impressive animated section in the middle of the film, which deals with a six month period Matt was in a Libyan prison. All together, Point and Shoot was a pretty interesting account of Matt VanDyke’s crash course into manhood.8 | LIKED IT
