Thriller

Prisoners

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  • Title: Prisoners
  • IMDB: link

PrisonersPrisoners is an infuriating movie that wastes the strong set-up of the raw emotions of families going through the kidnappings of their young daughters in favor of a descent into average thriller territory that continues twists and turns long after you’ve given up caring. Had the film stayed with the themes of emotion and loss and how far one will go for answers when the lives of their children are at stake, rather than force an unnecessary whodunit twist ending involving puzzles, complicated motives, and elaborate reveals, director Denis Villeneuve‘s film would have been much better off.

Hugh Jackman and Terrence Howard star as fathers who face the hard reality of their daughters disappearing on lazy weekend afternoon. Although convinced the police have the right man in custody, a mentally-retarded Paul Dano, Keller Dover (Jackman) becomes increasingly agitated when the police release the man from custody.

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Embrace of the Vampire

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  • Title: Embrace of the Vampire
  • IMDb: link

Embrace of the Vampire

Released in 1995 during what can only be descried as actress Alyssa Milano‘s naughty phase, Embrace of the Vampire was one of a handful of movies Milano starred in to shake-up her image, leave the role of Samantha Micelli from Who’s the Boss behind, and move forward into more adult roles. Even as a B-movie erotic thriller Embrace of the Vampire is far from successful. The goofy attempt at serious melancholy vampire story is far less memorable than the amount of skin the actress flashed in the film.

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Getaway

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Getaway
  • IMDB: link

GetawayFrom the director of Dungeons & Dragons comes a convoluted chase film that makes the logic behind The Chase look sound by comparison. You know you’re in trouble when you start a review with any variation of that sentence. To be fair to director Courtney Solomon, the many issues I have with Getaway have far more do with the troubled script by Sean Finegan and Gregg Maxwell Parker than the director’s occasionally worthwhile attempts to make a story impossible to take seriously moderately engaging. (How’s that for a ringing endorsement?)

We’re thrown right into the overly complex plot as former professional driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) steals a suped-up Shelby Mustang Super Snake after thugs working for a nameless voice (Jon Voight) on the phone kidnap his wife (Rebecca Budig). The choice to jump right in and show the kidnapping in broken flashbacks (as if Magna is piecing together what happened from the evidence left behind) works well. The trouble, however, starts once he gets behind the wheel of the car and begins taking orders from his new boss.

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The Numbers Station

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Numbers Station
  • IMDB: link

The Numbers StationDirected by Kasper Barfoed, The Numbers Station looks and feels every bit the low-budget thriller that it is. Set almost entirely in an underground bunker, the thriller somehow finds a way to make the setting feel empty and endless rather than claustrophobic. Mixed with what appears to be an extremely low budget and a circumspect screenplay that can’t find a way to make the idea of numbers stations exciting in 2013, The Numbers Station is the kind of straight-to-DVD B-movie that fizzles more than it entertains.

Our protagonist is Emerson (John Cusack), a government assassin with an acute case of conscience sent to Suffolk, England, after failing to murder a young woman (Hannah Murray) who was witness to his latest kill. Emerson’s new assignment is to protect Katherine (Malin Akerman), a cryptographer at a small numbers station used to relay encrypted codes across Western Europe. Haunted by his failure, and the death of the witness, Emerson tries to put the situation behind him, at least until the facility comes under attack by an organized group of terrorists.

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Trance

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Trance
  • IMDB: link

TranceTwo thoughts ran through my head when the end credits rolled on the latest film from director Danny Boyle. First, Rosario Dawson is one hell of a beautiful woman. Seriously, this film will be known, even more than for its train wreck of a plot, for the infinite number of screenshots of the fully nude actress which will inevitably hit the Internet in the coming months.

And second, when you get past the smoke and mirrors, the endless twists, turns, misdirection, and Dawson’s full frontal nudity, there’s not really that much to Trance. Despite a strong set-up, the script by Joe Ahearne and John Hodge eventually crumbles under the wight of its preposterous plot. Trance is simply too complicated for its own good.

The film opens with the theft of a $25 million painting from an auction house in broad daylight by a brazen group of criminals (Vincent Cassel, Danny Sapani, Wahab Sheikh, Matt Cross). Despite the best efforts of our narrator, the heroic auctioneer Simon (James McAvoy) who is injured in the heist, the crooks make off with the painting.

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