Reviews

Sorry to say that this is really a let down. I have yet to see the Danish original but this truly did not deliver. I figured with the rating at 6.3 and Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Ethan Hawke on board that this would be a decent effort. Sadly, as with many American remakes of foreign films, it flops. I've had more fun folding laundry. Save yourself the bother and just go do some dusting or wash the dog.

Overall this is a fairly decent film. I just don't understand the reason why it was remade? The original is superior in my opinion and this copies it virtually scene by scene so what's the point? Is it that American audiences dislike reading subtitles? Do yourself a favour and watch the original. It has a charm missing from its American counterpart.

The lack of effort put into this film is dizzying to say the least. Every cliché from any action movie that you've ever seen is deployed and deployed poorly. You never begin to engage with any of the characters even the once mighty Bruce. This is lazy writing, directing and acting at its zenith. Unless you are in prison and have no other options available avoid at all costs.

Usually I am ready to champion a film that's been pretty much slagged off by everyone else. I mean, it only had 215 votes and, besides, it has Ally Sheedy in it. Surely it can't be that bad?! Sorry to say but it was indeed exceedingly low rent at best. I was pretty unconvinced from the word "go". The opening cab ride, where a short news flash on the car radio takes the entire journey, suddenly had me seeing the flashing red lights that portend a real stinker. Nothing about any of the characters had any sense of authenticity and you could not really care about any of them. The war scenes were hoke and the whole thing is a badly written, badly directed and badly acted mess. There are plenty of ways to spend an hour and a half. I wouldn't waste it watching this.

I found this film to be one of the worst films that I have sat through in a long, long while. I felt very much like "Alex" in A Clockwork Orange, straight jacketed, eyes peeled open, forced to watch the more nauseating end of cinema. Even a low budget effort such as Carnival of Souls is far more watchable than this travesty of celluloid schlock. I found most of the acting to be of an acceptable standard with my main gripe being the shallow premise, the ill thought story line, tawdry script and off the shelf stock clichés. This is one stinker of a movie. Sometimes a film is so bad it is good in some odd way or another but this isn't one of them. After 20 minutes I knew without a doubt that this film was never going to redeem itself but still I watched it to the bitter end. I must remember to get my head examined.

Update: After digesting this film for a few days I have decided that I was perhaps a bit too hard on this film in my initial review, particularly by awarding it one star. I also withdraw the phrase "travesty of celluloid schlock" instead substituting words such as disappointing, unfulfilling and a letdown. The cinematography was handled very well, sets were well staged and most of the acting was of a reasonable standard. However, I still feel that it was an unimaginative script and story line riddled with clichés and, most important of all, NOT Scary!