The first half of the movie is genuinely suspenceful. The first time I watched this was on a crappy bootleg that stopped working halfway through. I thought that the critics were giving it a hard time after this. When I eventually finished it a few weeks later, I realized that they were right. And for a crappy action movie, the direction is surprisingly good. Asger Leth has a pretty good eye for action for someone whose only previous film was a documentary.

 

In general, the acting is crap. For starters, Elizabeth Banks is hilariously miscast as a detective who has a tragedy in her past. She's all wrong for the role. According to imdb, Amy Adams was sought after and considering how she has three Oscar nods, she may have made this work. Jamie Bell is annoying as Sam Worthington's brother and Genesis Rodriguez is on hand because she's hot and that's the only reason. And Edward Burns needs to realize that his strength is writing, not acting.

 

The script is an absolute mess. The characters are absolute morons, especially when Worthington tells Banks (a detective remember) that the ring that Bell proposes to Rodriguez with was stolen from David Englander. And she does nothing about it. And speaking of Worthington, he's as bad as usual here. I find it hilarious that his best performance was as a robot in Terminator: Salvation. He's not as bad here as he was in the Clash Of The Titans movies, but that's not saying much. Just as bad is Ed Harris, who, as a four time Oscar nominee, shouldn't have to be compared to Sam Worthington! He plays corrupt executive guy, David Englander and it's obvious that he's only here for the money.

 

Grade: D+