Zurich finds himself in hell week pledging to be one of the new lambdas.

The directing of this film was fairly well done; shots were well composed and looked quite good. The director was who also wrote the screenplay for this film together with Christine Berg. This was also one of his first films; I believe his first real motion picture, so it's quite surprising that he pulled of a relatively good film. He wasn't very creative with angles, but his camera movements and edits helped to bring you in the moment. When the main characters have trouble staying above water, the camera is moving up and down in the water accompanied with fast edits, to recreate how the characters would've felt. I like this, because it made it easier to get in to the film. Or to make us feel with the character they made the camera zoom in on his face from quite some distance. An example can be found at the end of the film. This technique really pays off. The cinematography too was good. The use of focus was good and created some visually good looking shots. But what made the shots look worse than they were supposed to was the color grading, something that's off in some movies nowadays and something that seems to wrong with Netflix' upcoming movie "Bright". The shots looked very dull due to the grey filter that was put over the film, which didn't give a good result. I don't really understand why they did this. Like I've said before, the editing was quite good; the pacing was right and the fast edits didn't feel forced. The soundtrack was really good and fitting to the film.

The acting was OK. The actor of the main character, Zurich, played by Trevor Jackson was luckily the best of the bunch. He showed his emotions well. He wasn't excellent, but he was good enough and did what the movie asked of him. His friend group felt like just a bunch of extras, whereby their acting to felt like nothing memorable. They were just there to be there and be their characters, but nothing more. I'm not saying that they were really bad, but I just would've liked them to bring more to their characters. To me they all just felt quite flat. Luckily there was some chemistry between the boys. In the cast there's also Trevante Rhodes, who you might know from "Moonlight". In both movies he gave a good performance, and because he was better than the rest of the supporting cast, I thought that he deserved a mention.

The screenplay was just OK and written by the director himself, together with Christine Berg. The story is something that has been told before - last year even with "Goat", to which this film often gets compared - so I was expecting some kind of twist on it, which wasn't the case. The story doesn't always follow the steps that other films have put down for it to make. What I did like was that I was able to understand the motive of the main character to go through all of this. The characters were not so good, though. There were quite some characters and I didn't really care for any of them. I felt really detached from the film, which is not a good thing. The only thing that helped with me caring for the characters was the directing and some of the acting, but not fully. Because of the flat acting of the supporting cast, and the bad characters for them to begin with, there wasn't much to be expected. And at the end there was something that I had foreseen from the start of, whereby it wasn't a surprise anymore. Even a bit before the death they get better friends, so we will feel even worse when he dies, which wasn't the case, because it's an over-used cliché. The female characters were handled well, not that they played a huge role, but often enough they are used as a pretty face in films like these. Here they have a personality and are not reliant on man, which was a big plus from me. What I did like was that the film was grounded and kept on being grounded throughout the film. There weren't any absurd things happening, or unrealistic things that kind of ruin the realistic feel to the film that similar films often have. Here the things that happen could've happened to some students.

In the end "Burning Sands" was an OK retelling of a story that has been told multiple times. This film just wasn't able to hit the emotional notes it wants to hit and this was mostly because of the screenplay; the characters were not well written. The acting too was only very good from a couple of actors of which the main actor was one. Visually this film is quite good looking, but the colors were a bit dull. That's why this film gets a 7/10.

Zurich Condoll (Trevor Jackson) aka number 4 is pledging Lambda Fraternity at Frederick Douglas University. The hazing process is all underground since it has been outlawed. It is very physical and humiliating. Zurich has trouble maintaining his studies and the hazing after taking several kicks to the rib on the first night. The hazing also weighs heavily on his personal life, but being a part of group of a-holes is all he wants. Quitters walk home.

There is a message in the film. "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." However when the message is applied to a physical hazing, it leaves much to be desired. Acting wasn't that great. The film is about message which could have been better developed.

Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity.

Burning Sands is a movie about this group of young college freshmen who want to get into this fraternity and have to go through one week of humiliation by its members.

It's a nicely-shot film, but the whole thing just isn't memorable enough, especially the characters. The only one you actually kinda care about is the lead. The rest, you will barely remember. Also, I just couldn't connect to the whole story. It's horrible and very tough to watch and I know that these things happen, but I couldn't help but wonder why would anyone let others do this to them? Where is your dignity? What's the point of it? Sorry, but I just don't get it. The performances were pretty good and the whole feel and atmosphere isn't bad either. But it just lacks the emotion and the gut-punch. Aside from the events happening in these scenes, there isn't much to it. It's not memorable. In the end I just felt annoyed.

It's not a bad movie and I understand the point it was trying to make, but I just couldn't connect to it.