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Directed by: Mikael Håfström Starring: Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston Practically impossible to give a spoilerless review of this without revealing the nature of the film, so there exists the threat that you might get more insight than you care to. The film begins with a meet cute between a happily married, although troubled, ad executive and an attractive and also married investment banker. While meeting for an illicit affair, they are held at gunpoint in a robbery which goes horribly wrong. The ad executive is now at the mercy of a sociopath who will milk him for everything at the risk of releasing details of the situation. The setup is solid enough, and Clive clearly has the acting chops to carry the film. Aniston is attractive, but I still don't think she's really that good of an actress. The problem is that either I'm too well versed in certain subjects or it wasn't presented well, but the film held no surprises and I found the rest of the film to be very ordinary and workmanlike so I didn't find too much to chew on to maintain interest. Of course, that all sort of goes away near the action ending which continues to devolve. In the end, I was thinking about better movies in this vein and better movies with Clive and that all this really had was a Friend in a 'shocking situation!' in the first 15 minutes. Oh, and there's no nudity. RATING: 2.5 PROS: Fair setup, Clive is good CONS: Bad action ending, concept weak ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398017/
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Nov 13, 2005 09:58
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 04:39 |
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I thought it was good. Then again it was a last minute call, I never saw a perview for it. So I had no idea what to expect, and when the movie unfolded I thought it was awsome but at the same time I can see how some one could not like it.
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Nov 14, 2005 05:18
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I watched this Friday night with a small group of people. None of us knew very much about the movie, but we'd seen everything else. We all called the "twist" roughly ten minutes after the big plot point (Hotel scene). This isn't to say that the movie is bad; it's just predictable. We've all seen this sort of movie many times now and there are several superior examples to this particular film. Clive Owen plays brings a lot to this otherwise mediocre movie. This is a solid example of how a good performance by an actor can smooth over the rough spots of the script. The rest of the cast was par, although Aniston's range seems very, very limited. Luckily, her role naturally affords her protection from "bad acting". This is typical "Let's pump out an uninventive script and pick up a few million in profit for the studio" movie. It takes no risks and even has a ten minute (approx.) ending sequence tacked on so that it would break the hour and a half mark. My favorite part of the movie was the homage to "Psycho". It has no part being in this movie; it is a very, very odd bit of humor in a movie that is otherwise devoid of it. Still, it showed that the writers were just as bored with this rip-off script as I was. Luckily, I had Clive Owen to keep me entertained. RATING: 2.5 PROS: Clive Owen / Homage to "Psycho" CONS: Boring, predictable plot with a typical action-ending full of holes. Why is the last ten minutes even in this film? Could have been edited down roughly to an hour and it would've been just as good, if not better.
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Nov 15, 2005 09:05
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I really liked it. A simple story told well. I liked how the movie picked up after the (pretty obvious) twist was revealed. A lot of movies try to climax on the twist, this used it just as a plot twist and carried through to the climax. It wasn't a classic, but I didn't expect it to be. Clive Owen's slowly becoming my favorite actor. Very satisfying piece of 2 hours. 3.5
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Nov 15, 2005 20:21
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Maybe I'm a big dummy but I never saw that "twist" coming. I really liked this movie, I thought they told the story well. I personally haven't seen or heard of any other movies that are similar like everybody else keep referring to, so it was all new to me (Apparently I live under a rock  )
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Nov 26, 2005 06:06
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That movie was almost unbearable. Every time I thought it was going to redeem itself, it slapped me in the face with another bullshit plot twist. Where the acting was believable, the personality switch from patron Charlie to Kill Everyone Charlie was totally non-existant, and kinda dumb anyway. Speaking of dumb the ending 0
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Nov 27, 2005 09:39
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 04:39 |
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just saw this movie for the first time and LOVED IT. everyone should see it :-)
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Nov 26, 2006 02:07
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