Mord im Loft

.. a movie that's far more entertaining than most of the crap produced these days.

Really nice acting, cringe-worthy characters (in a good way) played by talented & believable actors with a nice suspenseful/thrilling plot. I honestly thought I would hate it when I started watching it on BluRay, but wow, I sat through it all without even taking a bathroom break.

Not going to spoil anything, except for the fact that this movie is another reason why the so called "critics" should not be listened to.

Oh and watch it with your wife for the best experience.

The Loft is a murder mystery, directed by Erik Van Looy who also happened to direct the original Belgium film (loft) 2008. This remake follows the same story of five uncommitted husbands who struggle to sustain a relationship and to keep it in their pants. They are conveniently given access to a secret love dungeon where they can seek their mistresses and cheat on their wives. Shortly after somebody is "murdered" in the loft, the five begin to suspect each other and from there on the over complex CSI episode arises.

Ill start off praising the positives, since the film did have potential. The cinematography is miraculous. The unique sense of direction makes every shot look great. The script is somewhat lethargic but thankfully the "majority" of the cast pull it off. Each character was evenly distributed and explored, creating fairly interesting protagonists and slight emotional attachment. The score raised tension when necessary and kept me guessing on the edge of my seat. But after the 100th twist, the suspense and fascination quickly dissolved. The loft has simply out smarted itself, a simple, yet at times intriguing plot desperately seeks for every twist and turn it can find and uses them, I don't even think M. Night Shyamalan could've handled it. Things started to drag and seem all over the place. It is one big puzzle with one too many pieces. Overall a fun, entertaining sexual thriller. Nothing more, nothing less.

The movie started nicely,, with flipping between the moment of now in the investigation room and the moment where they found the body in the loft and the one year and between flashbacks .. Even though it had five different stories it was actually easily understandable.

The Idea of the movie is fresh and new for Hollywood and the plot flows smoothly in the first half an hour of the movie there are no much puzzles to think about but who really between those five guys did it !! until you start to think maybe it's one of the guys mistresses. then you jump to accuse everyone who speaks Latin, then everyone becomes a killer in your eyes :D .

So to be fair the screenplay writing appears so tight and consistent .. with just a couple of unexpected surprise in the end ;)

With the same director as the Belgian version of the movie Erik Van Looy and pretty much the same writers i'v heard they kept it just as it went in the original. Even though i kinda preferred to watch the original movie because the originals always better but i mean who can stand almost 2 hours of translated Dutch movie !! :P

As for the cast, the Leads whom i only know from TV they were all engaging and well invested in their roles, Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller and Eric Stonestreet and even the short appearances of Matthias Schoenaerts who was actually in the original Belgian movie "Loft (2008)".

Overall it went fine,, well at least let's say better than what i'v read in some reviews .

I have a couple of questions after watching The Loft. The first one is why some people don't like this movie? If you wanted to watch a mystery thriller then this is what you got. There's no way in hell you could see the end coming. That's what makes a mystery thriller standing out from the rest. A good story with some twists you don't see coming. My second question is why do we need to remake a movie that has been made before and even better? I saw the Belgian version of 2008 before and even if it is the exact copy of this version the original was even better. So why spending all that money on a movie that already exists? Just put some subtitles under the Belgian version and you got an even better movie. Saves you money and time. And if you watched this version of The Loft to see Matthias Schoenaerts play in it than you could have watched the original version as well because he plays in both movies. That must be a premiere I think. Anyways, even though I preferred the original version I still think this one was also good. Good story with good twists and with a good cast. What else do you want on a movie night?

"The Loft" is a remake of a Belgian film, and focuses on five married men who go in on a ritzy high rise loft for the purposes of pursuing their affairs and sexual escapades. When a girl winds up dead in a pool of blood in the loft, the five men panic as they attempt to unravel who she is and where she came from.

Taking some cues from Hitchcock (and not exactly with a fraction of Hitch's poise), "The Loft" is an overall entertaining film, but the script at times is the equivalent of a cheap Rubik's cube— it looks fine, it's a fun puzzle, I guess, but it's really just not that impressive overall.

The film shifts between past and present, unraveling the narrative through flashbacks which are sandwiched between the current dilemma of the four men arguing in the loft over the corpse of the dead blonde. The pacing is a bit choppy, and the transitions rather abrupt. James Marsden and Wentworth Miller are among the film's greatest star power here, but the cast overall is really underwhelming, and the performances are at times borderline campy as the men play up their roles as buffoonish plutocratic mattress hounds.

The finale cements my feelings of the film as an underwhelming thriller that seems more suited for television than the silver screen, but I still can't say it was totally not worth the time. In spite of the hammy performances, the disjointed narrative, and the overall sensibility of utter lifelessness that the film has, it is still by and large an entertaining flick. Nearly impossible to take seriously, but for entertainment's sake, it's passable. 5/10.