Not Safe for Work (2014)
A straight up office building thriller. Yeah, like that's a genre already—well, it feels like it. Isn't that what "Die Hard" was? This one tones it down and it becomes practically believable. Almost too believable, so that it's a bit routine after awhile, even if you're still on the edge of your seat.
So imagine you're the last one to leave the office—almost last—and the elevators stop. And then you see someone with a gun, and the computers go nuts, and the lights flicker. So you have a nightmare, trapped, no way to contact help. Even your cellphone ends up, of course, in the hands of the bad guy.
And what a bad guy he is, a seemingly cool customer with no qualms killing anyone for any reason. What's a little blood when a pharmaceutical company has a lawsuit on the fritz? And so it goes, running through offices and hiding behind desks.
Can this last for a couple hours? Almost! It works on some level. It doesn't work on a lot of other levels, for sure, like caring very much about anyone. (This is where both Bruce Willis and the script of "Die Hard" have something special going on, whatever you think of that Hollywood blockbuster.) Here, you more or less know what's going to happen, and then by the end you are sure. But getting there isn't half bad. Half, at least.
A straight up office building thriller. Yeah, like that's a genre already—well, it feels like it. Isn't that what "Die Hard" was? This one tones it down and it becomes practically believable. Almost too believable, so that it's a bit routine after awhile, even if you're still on the edge of your seat.
So imagine you're the last one to leave the office—almost last—and the elevators stop. And then you see someone with a gun, and the computers go nuts, and the lights flicker. So you have a nightmare, trapped, no way to contact help. Even your cellphone ends up, of course, in the hands of the bad guy.
And what a bad guy he is, a seemingly cool customer with no qualms killing anyone for any reason. What's a little blood when a pharmaceutical company has a lawsuit on the fritz? And so it goes, running through offices and hiding behind desks.
Can this last for a couple hours? Almost! It works on some level. It doesn't work on a lot of other levels, for sure, like caring very much about anyone. (This is where both Bruce Willis and the script of "Die Hard" have something special going on, whatever you think of that Hollywood blockbuster.) Here, you more or less know what's going to happen, and then by the end you are sure. But getting there isn't half bad. Half, at least.