The Rental

A generic, pointless and anticlimactic movie that fizzle out into nothingness. It always amazes me when people get a shot at making a full length movie (in this case, Dave Franco) and when they don't have anything new or good to bring to the table. Then why even bother? A waste of money, time and talent (Stevens and Brie.)

Two brothers and their significant others spend a weekend in a beautiful beachfront villa. What could possibly go wrong?

Dave Franco does a decent job for a first time director. The Movie is beautifully shot, atmospheric and moody as all hell. The cast is awesome, I always enjoy Dan Stevens and he's a delight here, but so is everyone else. I almost loved this movie but sadly the whole thing falls apart in the third act. Its as if a tense thriller is interrupted by a slasher film and its as abrupt and awkward as it sounds. That said the movie does not go where you expect it to and it is shocking and surprising.

After reading all those negative reviews I can only come to the conclusion there are a lot of quickly unsastified people on earth. I don't what they expect from a horror thriller like The Rental. I thought that for this genre it was a pretty decent movie. It won't win prizes or so but it's certainly entertaining. There is some good tension building and the acting wasn't bad either. I only know Jeremy Allen White from the excellent series Shameless, the rest of the cast was unknown to me but they all did a decent job. As for the horror it's mild but yet effective. All in all it wasn't a bad movie, certainly better than I expected for a movie in this genre.

The premise is interesting and the cinematography is good if understated. The story is a variation of others we've seen before. I'm sure that may detract for some but I don't mind twists on an existing idea. But the characters, ugh! I usually don't need to like the characters to enjoy a movie, but when a movie is so character-centric, it can detract, and in this case it did for me. Also, the ending implies something that seems implausible. I will have to Google to see if I can find any rationale for it.

There is suspense and some mystery, but the ending doesn't answer any questions.