‘Cozen’, written and directed by S. Joe Downing and co-directed by Katelyn Downing, grabs you by the throat in its opening moments. A man sprints through the woods, eyes wide, breath ragged, a strange electronic device clamped to his neck. The atmosphere is thick with panic.
Then we cut to twenty-four hours earlier. Paul Wells, played with urgency by Phillip Wheeler, sits alone in a bar, unraveling. He’s a father on the edge, drowning in debt, caught in a custody battle he can’t afford to fight. Loan sharks are circling. Options are shrinking. What begins as desperation quickly turns calculated, and cruel.
Paul finds his way into the criminal underworld, not by accident, but by choice. His plan is brutal. He straps an explosive device to Alex, a delivery driver played with gripping vulnerability by Daniel Christensen, and forces him into a high-stakes robbery of a woman who just won the lottery. It’s a setup without a safety net, and everyone is one mistake away from disaster.
Every element of Cozen speaks the language of tension. The editing is tight, the cinematography composed and shadowed in grit. The score pulses like a warning signal, amplifying every beat of anxiety. Nothing is overblown, but everything is heightened. The film has the polish of a high-budget feature, but the intimacy of a short. It looks and sounds professional, but it also feels personal.
Running at thirty minutes, ‘Cozen’ is a relentless crime thriller that respects its genre and its audience. The writing is solid, the performances locked in, and the direction is confident. It’s thrilling and uncomfortably real. A worthy watch.
