Ed's Review Dot Com

Universal Pictures, Dark Castle Entertainment, Woestijnvis,

Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Isabel Lucas, Rachael Taylor

Five married professional men in the city have keys to a loft in a large apartment building. Here they can bring their conquests for a private tryst while hiding from public places and their wives and families. But when one of the guys arrives at the loft and finds a beautiful girl murdered in the bed, he calls the others. This could be the end of the line for these guys and all their deeds may become known if word gets out. But the door was locked and the alarm was set, and all the keys are accounted for, so who is responsible. This who-done-it story is full of twists and turns and lots of lies and deceit in this crime thriller.

This film is definitely a crime thriller with the usual secrecy and deceptions, and the cast is really solid. With some top notch actors here, the talent is very good. The movie, however, has it’s flaws. The story is fresh enough, but the screenplay resorts to the usual plot devices and in that sense it feels very familiar. There could have been a little more effort put into the story to make it less predictable. The final big twist you can see coming a mile away. The actors are working hard, and they really give their best. This has the film of one of the old film noir detective films of old, but the difference is that the guys pretty much need to find out what happened themselves, knowing that the killer is probably one of their friends. This makes trust pretty difficult when you don’t know who is responsible for the terrible thing that happened here. The film is rated R, but there is very little actual sex and violence in the film itself. Instead it is a very adult story, and the subject matter itself is what gets the R rating. It’s not what you see, but what you experience that is for grown-ups only. If you like mysteries, this one is interesting and is good enough, but it’s not a great film that you need to run out and chase down on it’s merit alone.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Dark Castle Entertainment, After Dark Films,

Ethan Hawke, Selena Gomez, Jon Voight, Rebecca Budig, Paul Freeman, Bruce Payne, Ivailo Geraskov, Dimo Alexiev, Velislav Pavlov, Kaloaian Vodenicharov

Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) is a washed up race car driver whose wife has been kidnapped by a mysterious foe who calls every shot. He steals a car and heads off on a high speed chase following the commands of the villain who is giving him every turn. But when he gets hijacked by a young girl known as “The Kid” (Selena Gomez) the two team up to try to defeat the evil villain before it’s too late for his wife.

I should have hated this film. I’ve even seen it nominated for the Razzie for worst picture with Selena Gomez nominated as worst actress. I actually enjoyed it. I’m not sure why, but it was an exciting story, and I think Selena did a great job in this role. She played what she was given, and she’s supposed to be some hacker kid nerd, which she pulled off pretty good. The action was good, and though the ending was really silly, I thought, the rest of the film was interesting. I enjoyed the high speed driving, and the suspense. There are some ridiculous premises of how the guy can know what he does, and give them the commands, time after time, at the last second, but that’s part of the fun of the film. You can’t watch a chase film and expect it to be totally realistic any more than the crazy car commercials with “expert drivers on a closed track” are realistic. But if you just go into it watching the speed and the tension, it’s a half way decent film. I’m not sorry I chose to watch this one, and I think they did a pretty decent job.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog