The Secret - Ein tödliches Geheimnis

All the action takes place in a big building and, in particular, inside an elevator and on the roof of that elevator. What it makes it watchable is the lead lady, Sarah Butler, good actress and very charming woman. I wanted to watch the movie because of Malcolm McDowell but, he has just a small role, nothing spectacular like in the old days, "A Clockwork Orange" or "Caligula". He has an acting destiny very similar to Eric Roberts, they both act in everything, only to play and make some money. But Eric Roberts is far too far with 472 credits, while Malcolm has only 258. However, both have specialized in the same character, the wicked, smart and charming villain. The other actors are OK but, still static boring movie.

Jane Porter (Sarah Butler) works at Gault Capital. She's shocked when her supervisor Ronald Taft (Ian Gomez) tells her about a co-worker's apparent suicide jump off the building. Thaddeus Gault (Malcolm McDowell) offers her the job to replace him. She uncovers wrongdoing and tells Ronald. Ronald calls in Frank (D.B. Sweeney) to clean up the situation. Jane gets trapped in the elevator.

The writing is rather simplistic. Once she gets stuck in the elevator, the movie also gets a bit stuck. It's a hard premise to work and there is no imagination behind this to get it working. The outside story has no effect. At one point, Jane yells at Frank to "Do Something". I know the feeling. This is confined space thriller without any skills or originality.

Free Fall is a low budget direct to home video film that never really gets anything done. The story is there, but you can basically tell where it is going early on. While this is usually not a bad thing for these types of films, nothing exciting ever happens to keep our attention. The following is my review of Free Fall.

The film was written by Dwayne Alexander Smith. Smith is a relative unknown, which doesn't really hurt a film like this since the plots are usually paper thin to being with. The story follows Jane Porter(Sarah Butler) as she goes into work one day to find that her co-worker killed himself by jumping off the roof of the building. As Jane is cleaning out his work space, she finds a flash drive that has evidence that her company is taking part in criminal activity. When Jane tells one of her bosses what she found, the muscle comes in to knock off another employee to keep this quiet. Jane eventually gets caught in the elevator and the rest of the plot unfolds, or lack thereof. As I said above, the plot is paper thin, and sadly there is little to keep you interest for eighty five minutes. While I expected a bland script for one of these direct to home video films, this one just didn't keep my attention all that well.

The film was directed by Malek Akkad, who is well known for being the big name Producer of the Halloween series, having taken over that spot from his late father. Akkad is not known for directing film, as this is his first major outing as a director. If you can even call this a major outing. There is not much action until very late in the film, and even then the action is very light. The film overall though it shot amazingly, and you never really get the sense that this is a direct to home video film, that is until towards the end of the film there is a cheesy CG shot that looks awful.

The acting is fairly good, which surprised me. The film is lead by star Sarah Butler(I Spit on Your Grave) and secondary actors like Ian Gomez, D.B. Sweeney, and acting legend Malcolm McDowell. With names like this, you cannot go wrong in terms of acting. I've never payed attention to the career of Sarah Butler before this film, but she doesn't do a bad job in this film. D.B. Sweeney is one of my favorite actors, and he plays a fantastic bad guy, even though his character is not all that well written. Malcolm McDowell can play any character in any film and totally pull it off without any problems, and that is the case once again in this film.

Malek Akkad has a fairly good outing at his first attempt at directing a fairly bigger film. Sadly, the script wasn't anything special to keep our interest.

Timothy Andrew Edwards is the composer of this film, and most of his experience has been composing television material. While this is not exactly an award winning score in any way, I must say I did enjoy what Edwards did with this film. The score is fairly cheesy, but that works in a film like this. Overall, Edwards doesn't offer up anything amazing, but his effort is good enough for a film like this.

In closing, this film is a below average direct to home video film. The story itself is hurt by the uninteresting story later in the film, and also lack of action. The acting is really one of the few bright spots of this film, so if you are a big fan of smaller films like this, mixed with some good acting, this is a film you probably will want to check out. Most however will likely just want to skip this film.

4/10

The story is nothing new and some of the acting was a bit wooden. However, I thought Sarah Butler (I spit on your Grave) saved the film as the lead character trapped in the lift. Her feisty performance as Jane Porter gave the movie something extra. There are some thrilling moments and the pace is just about fast enough to keep the audience's attention.

Both the writing and the acting are poor. It moves too slowly. Watch "Not Safe for Work" instead.Though the cast contains some medium-sized actors (McDowell, Sweeney), the writing is likely weighing down the project. The elevator angle slowed down the movie in my opinion. A chase through the building would have kept the tension high as it does in Not Safe. The female protagonist does not convince that there is an impending doom, and the antagonist seems to fumble and bumble more than the money one assumes was spent on his services would imply. I honestly had to take a break from watching half-way through due to lack of interest.