Director: Seith Mann
Stars: Jamie Hector
When time and chance bring two friends to the crossroads of loyalty and morality, which path do they walk?
After premiering in 2003 at the Sundance Film Festival, Director Seith Mann launched an impressive career in television, directing Entourage, Nurse Jackie, Sons of Anarchy and the popular, The Wire. It’s not rare that a short film can serve as a breakout performance for a director.
Even more, it was the understated brilliance of the star of this film, Jamie Hector, who was later featured on The Wire as the unforgettable Marlo Stanfield, that epitomized the catapult into fame of such humble beginners.
Five Deep Breaths is a study in suspense. Two friends, Banny and Mark (Hector) accompany a battered female friend to pick up her belongings at her abusive boyfriend’s apartment. Banny, incensed by the beating his friend had received coupled with his own feelings of impotence, swears vengeance for her. Mark is dubious, although he knows that the abusive boyfriend owns a gun, he accompanies Banny to rile up a gang of friends to go teach the abusive man a lesson; then, tensions boil to a surprising reveal.
This was a Sundance aesthetic, making use of solid plotting and character development along the way. Films of this nature seem deceptively simple – grab some actors and a handheld camera, then have them yell at each other – but the difference between this and the thousands of handheld student films lobbed at the walls of Sundance every year is its incredible ability to build and sustain tension.
Overall, it is rare that circumstances like Five Deep Breaths (source review at Short Of Week) conspire to give young actors and filmmakers a viable career based on a short film. This is the exception and I hope it becomes the trend.
I have seen Jamie do all kinds of film — anything that deviates from his role as Marlo seems just a figment of the imagination.
Here in this shot, he shows why he was picked for that infamous role in The Wire. I love it when actors embody their characters. Jamie has owned this role ever since I saw The Wire.
From here you see why only folks like Seith Mann move on to big things.
its funny how even Idris Elba was finely wrapped in that role of his in The Wire. Now he keeps dilly-darlying around other roles and it just can’t look real.