Tag: Thriller

Man On A Ledge, a very descriptive title for a mysterious movie. I was confused when I saw the TV spots for this movie at first, the commercials definitely made it look like it was a TV show. But there was no way an entire show can be based on a guy maybe going to jump off of a building.

Unless it was on AMC, but then those 8 episodes would probably be the most amazing episodes of TV of all time.

But nope, it was a movie. But what the heck was it about? Very sketch previews. I did want to see it in theaters, but alas, no friends to go with. I was hoping it would be another movie like Phone Booth (which I love). But it is in fact, way different.

For instance, phone booths are 9 times out of 10 a safer place to be than a ledge.

The only stuff I will say in this will be known from the first thirty minutes. I mean, you have to get some plot as to why he is on the ledge. If not, you wouldn’t read this part at all!

Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington) used to be a cop, but got sentenced to jail for a felony. At the funeral of his dad, he found an opportunity to escape, and oh boy did he. He claims he was set up, where he allegedly stole very valuable diamonds from a local real estate / diamond guy (Ed Harris). Even his former partner (Anthony Mackie), despite his claim to innocence.

What does he do with his new found freedom? He makes a fake identity, gets a nice room and goes to stand on the ledge in the middle of NYC. Wooo, a jumper!

He refuses to talk to the original hostage negotiator (Edward Burns) but demands instead Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), someone who ended up getting a cop killed a month earlier, and the current red headed step child of the police department. Maybe he is just stalling though. He is after all talking secretly in a hands free device to his brother (Jamie Bell) and his brother’s girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez), who are across the street trying to break into a jewelry vault.

Wait what?!

A lot of the film takes place here though.

Thankfully the film had a lot more going on in it than just a diamond heist. And he wasn’t on the ledge the whole time either. Thanks to things like flash backs, the heist itself, cops doing cop work, and leaving the edge within the last 20 minutes, it is more than a one note thing. It is obviously a metaphor and literal title, given he is on a ledge, and just means a man who has no place else he can go. Either prove his innocence (if he isn’t lying) or die trying. Animal in a corner, and other stuff like that.

It had an okay plot, and a decent heist, but was still probably a bit too long. A few of the potential “oh man, action!” parts are just him acting like he will jump, when we all know it won’t ever happen. Not that early, at least.

What’s this? The Ghost Writer is actually based off of a book called The Ghost by Robert Harris, some British dude?

What is more surprising is that I actually knew about the book before the movie, and own the book. Me! Reading! Hah!

Only reason I have the book is because the author currently has 2/3 of a fictional trilogy of Cicero going on and it kicked ass. So I bought more of his books. Tried to read a different one and kept getting bored. Whoops. Political stuff and I don’t get along too well.

To books! They are the future.

Ewan McGregor is hired to finish the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) a fake former prime minister of Britain. His character name gets to be The Ghost! Because he is a ghost writer. It is supposed to be an Autobiography but, you know, it will be mostly be someone else writing it from his notes. This is going to be a sure hit, and lots of money.

Especially since Adam Lang might be prosecuted for war crimes, by illegally detaining possible terrorists and giving them to the CIA for torturing. Yikes. A lot of people don’t like that.

It should also be noted that Ewan is the second Ghost writer brought in because the last one who was doing it drowned. Which kind of sucks. This involves getting to stay in their resort house, all gated and protected, with the assistant Kim Cattrall, and Lang’s wife, Olivia Williams, to make sure he doen’t do too much bad stuff. But Ewan begins to find weird clues, including a phone number that calls the man who is bringing charges against Lang! Ewan also checks the GPS of the former writers car, and decide to visit the last place he visited. Huh, its a Pulitzer prize winner who has been dealing with the CIA since the 70s (Tom Wilkinson).

Is it possible that the former prime minister might have been a CIA agent this whole time?

He might be! Depends on how charismatic he is.

From what I can tell, this was a well directed and acted political thriller.

Unfortunately, I are dumb with politics, as I already mentioned. I knew this was also a fictional jab at Tony Blair and his friendliness with the US, and that maybe people are mad at him.

But I don’t know. I don’t know anything about Tony Blair or what the UK did during 9/11 and Iraq/Afghanistan wars. Seriously. So I’d say that if you know about all this stuff, this might be a better movie for you. If you don’t know a damn thing, it might be confusing.

I read a plot outline on wikipedia as I watched to make sure I was not missing thing as it was happening (which I was). Just general things I didn’t understand and made the film more confusing to me. Sometimes a guy just needs things spelled out. Hah.

After reading what I had just watched, turn out it was kind of interesting. But because of just being about things I have no knowledge in, it made the film just a movie.

Damn it, Halle Berry.

Maybe I should blame the director who has some ocean fetish?

Either way, fuck everyone involved with this trash.

I knew the movie Dark Tide was about Halle Berry and sharks and that’s about it. Another movie that sounds to be a recipe for excitement and thrills. But it isn’t.

Berry’s character used to swim with sharks and “Study” them. No real science, just the observation part. But at some point a tragic accident happened and her mentor died in the sea. Well, this caused a lot of tension, and she broke up with her boyfriend, Oliver Martinez.

A year later she is just doing boat tours, afraid of sharks now. Her old boyfriend pops back up, and is all, heyyy lets make money. They need it badly. In comes a millionaire who wants to buy cool things for him an his son to do, Ralph Brown. Like a all rich people, he is immediately shown to be a bad guy in the film for wanting to do something cool.

She agrees, but only with cages, no free swimming with the great whites. But he says bump that, and leaves the cage anyways, making almost danger. As it gets later at night, and the waves get crazy for a storm, a lot more arguing happens, and Berry gets all “rawr” and says LETS GO BACK OUT.

So they do. And shit goes wrong. Boat capsizes. Some people die, and all around clusterfuck.

I’m sorry guys. Here is another picture of Halle Berry in a bikini top.

This movie is almost two hours long. I paused it halfway through, shocked that it was no where close to being done, and went to sleep. That is how boring it was. The beginning was also confusing, and I think they were shownig stuff out of order, or shots that had nothing to do with Halle Berry’s boat.

There are attacks in the film that happen…to other people. I guess to try and keep it interesting? Weird direction to go, since the first 80 minutes seem to be them saying that sharks aren’t dangerous to humans, but they keep showing the contrary.

The only “exciting” part happens near the end, but it is at night, so hard to tell what is going on, and most people are wearing full wet suits and not talking (under water) so hard to tell who is doing what. When the boat capsized, I had no idea who got stuck in it and drowned. Really, no idea.

But the shitty ending isn’t the worse part, it is definitely everything before it. A “serious” movie that seems to have about 5 minutes of real drama stretched throughout the film. SO. FUCKING. BORING.

I am kind of afraid to watch any movie about the ocean now, just because of how dull these movies are being made about them. This film offers nothing in terms of entertainment value for two hours of your life.

Oooh. What is that? Another surprise movie for me. Before last night I had no idea there was ever a movie based off of the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Please read about it. There is a good chance you have heard of it before, but just might not remember it.

But yeah! The Experiment. A modern and fictionalized exaggeration of real events. Go go go!

Hooray science!

In case you are an asshole who doesn’t know about the experiment and didn’t click the link, it was a social experiment done at Stanford. A group of guys were chosen to be inmates, and a group of guys chosen to be prison guards. It was an experiment that was supposed to last 14 days, but lasted only six before the plug had to be pulled. Why? People adapted to their roles super quickly and performed things they didn’t think capable. Forms of tortue, abuse, no physical violecne only mental. Prisoners became complacent and passive and only obeyed orders. It worked way too well.

So yeah, that is happening here too. Adrien Brody is a very passive guy, kind of a hippy, but needs money. So does Forest Whittaker, who lives with his mother. They befriend in the original application process, because in this experiment they are offered $14,000 for fourteen days of work. Of course Forest becomes one of the guards, and Adrien a prisoner.

In his cell, Adrien is bunked with Clifton Collins Jr., a guy who seems to know how to be a prisoner already, and Ethan Cohn, a fat diabetic graphic novelist looking for new material.

The main mean guard (At the start) is played by Cam Gigandet, who quickly takes in his new role. They are given five rules that the prisoners must abide by, and the knowledge that if a prisoner breaks a rule, they must punish them accordingly (non violently). If they don’t within 30 minutes, a red light will flash and the experiment will be over and they will not be paid.

The real question is, how far will this experiment go? How much are humans different than animals, really?

“Mmm. You got a pretty (Shiny) mouth.

Just kidding, those aren’t the real questions. You know how far they go.

I liked that the movie relied not on special effects or any CGI, but just the actors themselves. A lot of them do very good jobs, showing the emotion that both sides go through, and change into their stereotypes.

BUT. It is pretty different from the actual experiment. Films change actuality. But in this case, I think the actuality is a cooler story than the film version. In this movie there was attempted rape, death, and yeah, some physical violence. Also some nice urinating on people stuff. Gross right? That kind of stuff didn’t happen in the real experiment. (Would it have happened over six days? Maybe. Have to wait for an unethical country or Texas to try it again).

Had it made it “realer” in terms of what happened in the 70s, I think it might have been a better movie. The ending also seemed to take away from some things. Was pretty unnecessary.

Hooray! With the review of The Quiet, I finally get to have at least one review for every letter of the alphabet! To be fair, I thought this movie also came out in 2007. Damn it. I just really didn’t feel like watching The Queen (it is also outside of my range).

Also the stars of this movie are bit more attractive than the star of The Queen.

The movie is told from the point of view of Dot, played by Camilla Belle. Why is she so quiet? Oh because she is deaf/mute. Sucks! She can read lips though. After her dad dies she goes to live with her godparents, Martin Donovan and Edie Falco, and their daughter, Elisha Cuthbert. How handy that they are around the same age!

Well no one cares about Dot at her new school. Cheerleaders make fun of her, including a younger Katy Mixon. Yet somehow, star football player Shawn Ashmore (of course, that is all he did in his roles) develops feelings towards her.

So whats the point of the movie? Oh, just some father/daughter rape plot line. Not just a one time thing, it is implied that it has been happening for years. The mom might know about it, explaining why she is on tons of pills and a zombie (not a real zombie). But what about Dot. Does she have her own secrets? Yes. Yes she does.

Flynn gets uncomfortable when incest is involved.

Turns out people are horrible, dirty things. A lot of people in private love telling Dot their secrets when she can’t read their lips. Feels good to get things off their chest to someone when they cant understand/hear/know you are talking at all. Which is good for creepy monologues.

Lot of comparisons also to Beethoven in this movie, since Dot plays the piano. Kind of weird, but the deepness they tried to convey didn’t really happen.

Overall I was interested in the story. I think the movie went on a bit too long after a big climatic part. Always a drag, when they don’t know how to end a movie really. Took a little bit to actually get going too. Typical high school scenes abundant (a dance, school lunch seating problems, snoddy cheerleaders, a biology lab involving a dissection). Obviously Camilla Belle isn’t also deaf/mute, but she did a good job “not reacting” to things around her based off of noise.

Watch? Not watch? Do what you want. I will note I really thought the cover said Eliza Dushku. I think about 30 minutes in I realized that she wasn’t coming. Whoops.

A historical drama and political thriller about the works of Shakespeare? Alright. Why the hell not.

That shit was like a rock show back then.

In case you didn’t know, Anonymous is a movie saying that William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall in the movie) did not write the works accredited to him. No, he was from a family of illiterates, and just an actor who was in the right place at the right time. No, instead it was Edward de Vere, an Earl of Oxford at the time who might have wrote them all! And he is played by Rhys Ifans.

Oh okay. Well why does it say that? Pretty much explains it over the whole movie.

According to the movie, play writes who got out of line back in the day got imprisoned. Nothing too raunchy, nothing against the crown, etc. Some guy named Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto) get arrested early on for being such a crude guy, I guess.

But the movie has an Earl doing all the writing, and in secret at that. Writing is also frowned upon for some reason. But he gives his plays to others to publish, under ‘Anonymous’, until Shakespeare takes credit after (Henry the VIII maybe?). Which he is fine with. Good, someone to “direct” all his works. Great.

Theres also the major plot about Queen Elizabeth 1 (Vanessa Redgrave) having sex with EVURRYBODYYY. And having secret children, even if its with people she was related to. Eventually this stuff leads to heir questions, possible revolts and mobs, and some war stuff. Beheadings too.

The movie also begins as if it was a play in front of a live theater, and ends that way too. But don’t worry, it turns into a real movie after the intro, and before the outtro.

“Your mother is an outtro.”

I can tell you I know very little about Shakespeare’s work. Never really cared. Also historically, I like ancient, but that means older than Renaissance. So any of that stuff wasn’t as interesting to me.

With all the sleeping around and fake babies, it just felt like a modern drama set in the past. I don’t even know how the movie explained that no one would be able to notice the Queen was pregnant all those times.

Also, a lot of the characters looked alike in my head. Kind of like the six fingered man in The Princess Bride. At least half of them. That made it harder for me to just follow along with the plot, which was important, given all the characters. The play also took place over 4 different years, over about 35 or 45 years though. It was more confusing, because I didn’t know when it went super far in the past. The other years at least showed “Five Year prior!”. Maybe the super far in the past one did too. But I missed it.

Shouldn’t be hiding time cues like that!

But anyways. The movie looked pretty, but the plot seemed kind of silly.

Deception has apparently been out for awhile, yet I have walked by it tons of time without even looking. If I had ever actually glanced at the cover I probably would have watched it a lot sooner, on the actors alone.

Lets just hope the actors don’t deceive me into watching a bad movie.

Maybe I should call this movie Sexception instead. Chuchhh!

Movie opens with Ewan McGregor, working late at night in a conference room alone. Turns out he is some sort of an accountant. Works for a few companies every year, good with numbers etc. Well, Hugh Jackman saunters over and sees him alone, as he is also working late that night. Jackman is a lawyer for that company, but despite that they become good friends and smoke pot!

They hang out a lot over the next few months, and when their cell phones accidentally get mixed up, Ewan answers the call and finds a woman on the line. She wants to meet, so they do, and they have sex. Yay sex! Turns out Hugh is in a “Sex club” type deal, where they dont know the other persons name, someone else sets up a list, they just go down the list. The caller sets up a hotel room, they have sex, no real talking, no names. Boom. So he joins the club but meets a mysterious lady, S, played by Michelle Williams. Despite it all they talk, and agree to meet again, despite still not knowing information about each other.

Well, later on Ewan opens the door, sees blood, and is knocked out. Next thing he knows she is missing, and he has no idea what is going on. Kind of hard to tell the cops this information too. The rest of the movie is the search for S, trying to figure out who Hugh really is, and also this other plot about stealing millions of dollars.

Pretty intense copping a feel going on here.

Oh I get it. Maybe everyone is lying, about their identity, and what they do. What then? Who do I trust?

Good question.

I think the movie was far too slow for what eventually happened. This bad boy is almost two hours, so there is definitely a lot you can watch. Unfortunately a lot of the twists are kind of predictable too. The ending I wouldn’t describe as predictable, just lame. Never really cared about any of the characters either. None of them seemed relatable or interesting. I don’t know how often I find characters “relatable” but for some reason I really noticed it in this movie, and that just made the whole thing uninteresting.

The cover of The Resident makes it look like it involves a stalker of some sort. Probably someone who shares the apartment complex. Awesome. I don’t mind creepy thrillers, they are like a lame horror.

Unless of course this movie decides to make it not too creepy or thrillery…just weird and dumb. Which it does. Damn it.

“In before the ‘rape’ talk.”

The plot is very simple, because well, the movie is very simple. Hilary Swank is an ER doctor, and is breaking up with her boyfriend. She needs a new apartment, finds a big one in a complex that is being reconstructed, with only about one other tenant (Christopher Lee, with maybe the smallest/most pointless role in his career).

Also the price is damn cheap, since she’d have to hear construction noises. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the owner, isn’t bad looking either. EXCEPT HE IS OBSESSED WITH SWANK AND SPIES ON HER AT NIGHT AND SOMETIMES SNEAKS IN AND TOUCHES HER. ALSO HE MIGHT BE DRUGGING HER TO TAP THAT. Very romantic.

Eventually she finds out, freaks out but not with enough time to tell authorities. Long struggle. Eventually he dies. Movie over.

Before I analyze why I hated it, fun fact, in P.S. I Love You, Hilary Swank loses her husband and takes forever to get over him. Eventually she does, and partially because of some “sexy Irish man” she meets, who is played by, of course, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. From love to rape. It happens.

They don’t even make the “whodunnit” part suspenseful.

This movie is not good. That is an opinion, but I will say it in a stern voice. There is no possibility that the early tampering with Swank is not done by any other character other than the one who does it. Most of the scenes show him sitting in between walls and shaking. All Swank does is take awkward baths and take, well…some abuse. Until she finds out.

I didn’t find it creepy, just weird. I didn’t find it scary, just weird. I didn’t find it good, just stupid. I felt like very little happened. Even tried to show a whole bunch of scenes over, to show how weird the guy is, and it just confused me more than anything.

I award this movie no points and may god have mercy on its soul.

Dream House? I never saw a preview for this movie. Just new it was “thriller/horror” based, had james bond, and the poster involved two girls wearing outfits that looked like wall paper.

Alright. Sounds like nothing new, but lets see what happens!

Something religious, maybe?

Daniel Craig is a writer, but he is done with that shit! He wants to move with his wife (Rachel Weisz) and two kids to a non city area, and write! Oh yeah, he isn’t done with writing, just wants to help raise his family better. Suburbs are good for that. Write novels at home and stuff.

Well, his daughters start to see things. A man in a window? And there is someone they sometimes see outside? Turns out five years prior, a MURDER happened in their house. The wife and kids were killed by the dad who was taken to a mental institution. After further research, he was released not too long ago! He tries to get more information out his neighbors, Naomi Watts and her husband Marton Csokas, but they seem uneasy, and unwilling to help.

At this point have you figured the whole movie out yet?

Well yeah that is true. But then there is more. After all “Dream House”. The things that happen in the house, how much of it is real, and how much of it is fake? Thankfully every question is answered in the movie. Whether or not you accept the answers as good enough is the bigger question.

There goes the wallpaper clothes. Is that supposed to be scary? Just seems like they’re poor.

The movie is only about 90 minutes and can easily be broken up into about three parts. The first part is the boring set up, possible weird stuff going on, without anything actually being scary. Second part is the investigation and realization. Third part is the confusion of what is real, what is fake, and the wondering of why any of it matters. The ending of the movie is a complete mess. Confusion is what they were going for, but even when you should know what is going on, you will be confused because of poor design.

So what am I left with? A thriller that isn’t thrilling, and a lame conclusion / obvious plot line (that they try really hard to muck up). Blah.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo in the Girl Who Has Long Titles, trilogy.

This one doesn’t have an American version yet, so I won’t put Swedish in the title. Heck yes!

She looks more normal in this film. Well, in this scene. Others she looks just as weird.

So this movie takes place a year after the first? I think so. Year is a relative term. Since the last movie she only a had a year left of having a guardian, but in this movie, guardian seems to still be a problem. I didn’t like it, seemed force, mostly because it seemed like Lisbeth said the same exact shit as the first movie, and it was just unnecessary. So that bugged me.

Michael Nyqvist still plays the detective dude. This time instead of focusing on rape, they are working on sex trafficking. So kind of rapey. I guess.

Talking about the plot of this seems silly. You would only watch it if you’ve seen the first movie, and unless you hated the first one, the plot summary wont convince you to watch this one. So what does this one have? Less rape, as I said. Plus more lesbian sex. Also long lost family members, set ups on crime, and some more computer hacking. But that is about it.

Personally, as just a movie, I found this one to be kind of a mess. Maybe its the transition between book and novel, or mini series and movie? But it was just hard to follow. A lot of stuff was assumed.

Like they assumed Lisbeth did the murder because of some fingerprints? A lot of weird shit happened in this movie, and most of it seemed to come not from the main sex offender plot.

This might have been a deleted scene from The Warriors?

The only reason I am giving it the “one watch and thats all you need” rating, is because acting wise they did pretty good. But me understanding the point of the movie? That was low. Wouldn’t want to watch it again. I can at least see why there would be a third movie after this, based on the ending. So that is a plus too.

2 out of 4.