A small town in the middle of America is caught in the midst of a terrible conspiracy that puts armed troops in the streets. Estranged brothers who must put their differences aside to survive. Sounds a bit familiar? Add an annoying would-be YouTube star who’s putting everything on film and an Alex Jones type conspiracy monger and what do you get? You get writer/director Aaron Garrett’s debut feature False Flag, something not nearly as epic as its artwork would suggest.

Mark (Sean Mount) let his parents put the money they couldn’t afford into his business and left town. That left them broke and his brother Ash (Justin Rose, Super Dark Times, Confessions Of A Graverobber) struggling to help support them. An attempt at a reunion by would-be video star Donny (Andrew Yackel, One Must Fall, Swamp Thing) goes badly.

Minutes later an alarm sends everyone into a panic. Suddenly marchers and troops armed with a sonic weapon of some sort appear. We hear something about a “new criminal code” and then things get ugly. There are explosions off-screen and the foursome run into Tessa (Jennifer Andrada, Body Farm, Army From Hell), conspiracy theorist and contributor to Michael Stone’s (Elliott Mayer) show The Fringe Facts. They try to flee but find the troops aren’t letting anyone leave town. Shots are fired and Mark is taken prisoner in the ensuing chaos.

False Flag is presented found footage style. We see it as aired on The Fringe Facts, complete with cut-ins from Stone hyping how sensational it is. It’s also, for some reason intercut with footage of the brothers from 2015, which is annoying as hell.

What we end up with is a few scenes of small-scale panic, some shots of troops beating somebody or shooting a fleeing man but little that can really be called an action scene. We also get a couple of “patriots” Roland (Aaron Garrett) and Kurt (Keith Hernandez) going on about global tyranny but never giving a lot of specifics.

False Flag ends with a twist and double twist to try to build up the paranoia. But it just comes off as silly and confusing. Especially as we never find out just what was going on and the final revelations make it seem like the events weren’t nearly as serious as we thought.

False Flag may appeal more to those into Info Wars and conspiracy theories than it did to me. Anyone just watching for a dose of action is going to be disappointed though.

False Flag is available streaming and on DVD from Wild Eye Releasing.