Shuttle - Endstation Alptraum!

Interesting from the start, though far from riveting, the plot of Shuttle very slowly builds to an incredibly unsatisfactory ending. The premise is all right; people embark on an airport shuttle towards downtown only to discover that they are at the mercy of a psychopath who kidnaps them. What ensues, however, is a pretty by-the-number thriller where there is not one development, plot point or reversal that is unpredictable or surprising in the least. Even a supposedly midpoint twist is totally foreseeable only by the way the main characters are introduced at the beginning. From then on it's merely a long cat and mouse game that loses interest quickly.

Audiences of this type of genre fare are trained to expect a major twist at the end; no such luck here. There is a conclusion but it is neither truly shocking nor original. And to claim that the filmmakers wanted to make any kind of statement about the world and a sad phenomenon with this ending would be easily negated by referring to the sheer exploitative nature of everything that precedes it.

The length is way too indulgent for this material; at least twenty minutes could easily be cut without compromising this story. Shuttle is not without merits though. Acting is surprisingly accomplished throughout, particularly by the two girls, especially in light of the weakness of the material they have to work with. Their backstory, undoubtedly aimed at deepening their characters, is incredibly clichéd and poorly conceived. Directing is top notch, low-budget film-making at its best; again, too bad there is no properly developed screenplay to provide a solid foundation.

This is a pretty unknown thriller that was actually good. The writer/director managed some tense sequences and the actors are above the usual C-grade for a small movie and they managed sympathetic performances that led me to care about their welfare. The story isn't above flaws but the characters, who've been kidnapped and are being transported to an unknown location via shuttle bus, are proactive and not daft, and so I contentedly went along with it. In fact, there was a surprising twist that I quite enjoyed too.

Oh hello, I guess this movie wasn't that small if Roger Ebert reviewed it. Now that I've checked out his one-star review, I remember glancing at it sometime back and deciding not to watch this movie. Good thing I'd forgotten about that; this is one of the rarer instances where we disagree.

I've just finished watching this movie and as always I refuse to give too much away on the plot and characters so here is my simple review.

The good points - Original plot, very acceptable acting by mostly unknown actors and OK direction by first time director Edward Anderson on a low budget. The bad points - Not enough time spent getting to know the characters i feel the movie could have spent the first 20 - 30 minutes getting to know about the characters, very poor colour and lighting in this movie everything seemed to have a pale complexion, its got your usual don't do that, why did he/she do that scenarios for thriller/horrors.

All in all could have been better maybe seemed a little too long based on the fact that there was no character development at all.

Average

Try and enjoy if you do watch it though.

If you have seen Taken, then you will notice the similarity of the idea of trafficking. I know that both movies were released in 2008 but I don't know which one came first. However, the similarity in here is only in that point and other than that both movies are different and not to be compared in anyway. I loved both though Taken is much much more better but this doesn't make shuttle a bad movie.

Shuttle has good things about it in terms of getting you wondering what the bus driver will end up doing with the girls. It's not that you don't guess why he kidnapped them but you will wonder what will happen.

Overall, the movie does have bunch of entertaining elements in the plot and though the reviewers probably didn't like the characters, I did like them and they were convincing in some parts. One of the reviewers mentioned the fact that the characters were so stupid and at some points could have easily escaped but this is not true. The other day I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my turn to get into the doctor's office and my laptop was with me. And then I read a sign about what to do if a fire starts and started wondering if a big fire flamed out in the whole place and the only way to save myself is to run fast, What would I do? Would I choose to forget about my heavy bag of laptop and CDs to save my life? and I found it really hard to leave my expensive things behind right away. Things have to really get worse for me to start considering throwing my things away. So this is what usually happens with movies when you find some actions stupid and you can't understand them or find the rationale behind them from the comfort of your seat at home. I find these things true and serve the plot and increase the tension.

Once again this was a DVD that was at sale for a few euro's immediately. The reason I bought it was the fact that it was recommended by some creepy freak. So I did and now I'm left with a feeling don't knowing what I should think of it, is it horror or is it a thriller. Guess that's the problem why it is already so cheap. Is it bad, not at all, it clocks in at 102 minutes but it never bored me. And that's already good news. Is it gory, no it never is scary or bloody but luckily it contains a few changes in the storyline. for example, when the shuttle stops at the terminal some one is already on board. Does I need to say more? You can see it coming who he is. But indeed, when you guessed it there are things happening you couldn't suspect. Some people will put it under the torture porn titles, but it isn't gory enough to have that label. But still, it's watchable for everybody. There isn't any nudity in it so i would label it rated 15.