You ever sit through a movie and realize, about halfway in, that you have absolutely no idea what’s happening, but you’re weirdly into it anyway? That’s basically the vibe of The Power of Few. Released in 2013, it was this ambitious, messy, and totally bizarre New Orleans crime drama that tried to do everything at once. It had Christopher Walken playing a homeless man. It had Christian Slater as an FBI agent. It even had a subplot about the Shroud of Turin.
Honestly, the power of few movie isn't just a flick you watch; it's more like a puzzle where some of the pieces are from a completely different box.
Most people missed it when it hit theaters—if you can even call a limited platform release "hitting" theaters. But if you dig into the production, it turns out the movie was actually a massive experiment in crowdsourcing. Director Leone Marucci and producer/star Q'orianka Kilcher decided to let the internet help make the film. Fans could vote on costumes, locations, and even edit a specific action sequence (Scene 64) online. The winning edit actually made it into the final cut. It was "interactive filmmaking" before everyone had a TikTok account.
One Afternoon, Twenty Minutes, and a Whole Lot of Chaos
The structure is where things get really trippy. The entire movie takes place over about twenty minutes on a single afternoon in New Orleans. We see the same window of time repeated from five or six different perspectives.
You've got these two FBI agents (Slater and Nicky Whelan) hunting down terrorists. Then there’s a pair of local guys (Anthony Anderson and Juvenile) involved in a drive-by. At the same time, a courier named Alexa (Kilcher) is trying to save a guy on the run. Oh, and Christopher Walken is wandering around as "Doke," an ex-news anchor who had a mental breakdown and now hangs out with his friend Brown (Jordan Prentice).
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The whole point of the power of few movie is that every tiny choice these people make ripples out and changes the outcome for everyone else. It’s like Pulp Fiction met Crash, but with a way lower budget and a lot more religious conspiracy theories.
Why the Shroud of Turin?
One of the weirdest threads is the smuggling of the Shroud of Turin. Yeah, the actual holy relic. Larry King even shows up as himself on TV screens throughout the movie to talk about it. It feels totally out of place compared to the gritty street crime, but that’s the "butterfly effect" the movie is obsessed with. A heist involving a global religious icon somehow impacts a kid in a corner store trying to get medicine for his baby brother.
It’s heavy-handed? Sure. But you have to respect the swing.
The Crowdsourced Disaster (or Masterpiece?)
The production of the power of few movie was arguably more interesting than the movie itself. Marucci and Kilcher used a platform called Jumpcut to let "the global audience" participate.
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- Fans chose the casting for certain roles.
- Online users edited an entire action scene.
- The community influenced the music and even character backstories.
Critics at the time, like those at IONCINEMA, called it a "product of Communism on filmmaking," which is a bit dramatic, but you get the point. When you let thousands of people make creative decisions, the final product is bound to be a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster. It lacks a single, cohesive vision. One scene feels like a high-stakes spy thriller, and the next feels like a philosophical indie play.
Does the "Power of Few" Actually Work?
If you're looking for a polished Hollywood blockbuster, you're gonna hate this. The acting is all over the place. Nicky Whelan’s "bad-ass" agent character feels a bit like she’s playing dress-up, and some of the dialogue is just... rough.
But then Christopher Walken opens his mouth.
Walken is the soul of this movie. He delivers lines like "I could eat the ass of a low-flying duck" with the kind of sincerity only he can manage. His character, Doke, represents the "few"—the small, seemingly insignificant people who actually hold the power to change things. The ending centers on a young girl named Few (Tione Johnson), whose one simple decision at a crossroads literally rewrites the tragedy we spent the last 90 minutes watching.
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Actionable Insights for the Curious Viewer
If you're actually going to track this down and watch it, here's how to handle the experience:
- Don't try to track the timeline too hard on your first watch. It’s supposed to be confusing. Just let the New Orleans atmosphere (shot beautifully by Reinhart Peschke) wash over you.
- Watch for the background details. Because the scenes overlap, you’ll see characters from "Story A" walking through the back of "Story B." It's the most technically impressive part of the film.
- Focus on Tione Johnson. Most critics agree she’s the standout. In a cast of heavy hitters like Walken and Slater, the kid actually carries the emotional weight.
- Look up "Scene 64." Knowing that the scene was edited by a random person on the internet makes the disjointed energy of the action much more fascinating.
The power of few movie is a relic of a time when we thought the internet was going to democratize Hollywood. It didn't quite work out that way—most movies are still made by a handful of executives—but as a piece of experimental history, it's worth the 96 minutes of your life just to see Christopher Walken talk to a spinning quarter.
To get the most out of your viewing, try to find the Blu-ray version if you can. The "Cast Interviews" featurette actually explains a lot of the weirdness that doesn't make it onto the screen, specifically how the actors felt about the "interactive" nature of the script. Knowing the intent behind the chaos makes the "Power of Few" feel less like a mistake and more like a very loud, very strange labor of love.