Balade Meurtrière

Maybe my english isn't that good.. but the dialogues were weird and most of the time didn't make any sence... it was hard to understand what they were talking about even with Greek subtitles.. haha... but if i skip this, the movie was pretty good.. it had some brutal scenes that came up out of the blue, it had a dark back up story and what did happened is food for thought about violence, about revenge and what i finally kept on mind is that doing something bad and do nothing to stop something bad, live on the same place. It's more like drama but with strong elements of horror! It's a movie for 6 stars but i 'd give one more for two reasons, it was a New Zeland production and because action started up quickly without boring intro stuff...

I was really liking the movie at first. It showed the family, they got along, what they did on their trip, basically getting to know the main characters. Then the bad guys show up. Still suspenseful, but after a short period I'm baffled why they made the decisions they made. And the ending was so stupid, which made me really dislike the film even more.

What I figured was going to be a 7 or an 8 at first but after all that it gets a 5.

This film is one of those that is frustrating because it is so close to being great but it just can't get there. The majority of the performances are excellent, the cinematography is beautiful, the concept is intriguing, the biggest let down is the plot.

Whilst I have no issue with a slow burn plot, the issue I have with this film is the repetitive scenes that take place and cause the progression of the story to be unnecessarily slow. Basically there are 5 different instances in the film were a character attempts to escape from the two captors. Granted some of these scenes are shorter than others but as you can imagine, the failed escapes get rather dull fairly quickly.

I would have rather had scenes of plot progression, better dialogue scenes or more flashbacks examining the core point of the film. I think if less screen time had been spent on people running through forests or down dark roads I would have been more invested. Instead it was just frustrating. After the second attempt it became pretty clear the main character was not going to manage to get away, as then the story would not be resolved, and all the following escape scenes became redundant and therefore had no emotional impact.

Credit where it is due, the film wasn't bad and there were elements that were excellent. I just wish there had been more of those and less chase scenes.

I only decided to watch this movie because of Daniel Gillies and I also read some good reviews and it was indeed good it kept me in agony all the way until the end it wasn't boring at all the actors played their roles perfectly, honestly since the beginning it left me in shock I won't spoil, though I wish it had a better ending.

I really did enjoy this film. It was brutal, tension filled, and I liked the fact that these many acts of violence weren't just "cause we wanted too" but that there was an actual reasoning behind it.

The directing was brilliant, the sound design was spot on, the performances were top notch... my only complaint is the script. It starts off so strong but loses its way towards the end. I think for a film that answers most of your questions, the ending just leaves you with more that you didn't even know you had. I also think the running time was just a tad bit long.

But these are just my own opinions. I truly think if you love thrillers or slow burn horror (this film definitely gives off horror vibes) than it is definitely worth your time.