Elevator

I got to see this one on it's world premiere yesterday, at the Tromso International Film Festival. Not knowing what I could expect from this hardly known Norwegian director, Stig Svendsen, I was still hoping to see a nerve wrecking thriller about modern day terrorism. The film started out as expected, but it seemed very unoriginal at first. The main characters seemed too familiar and too smooth. Additionally I found a couple of the actors weren't any good. But as the film got going, it turned out this wasn't at all a dead serious thriller. A couple of really watchable characters showed up, and the scripted turned humorous, in a quite successful way.

The film goes on as a rare mix of comedy and thriller, that actually works brilliantly. The filmmakers have successfully combined a serious situation with humor, and the result is one crazy elevator ride. It owes a lot to traditional action comedy films, but at the same time it really is something of it's own. It's rare to see such entertaining films and especially films about such a relevant topic.

ELEVATOR has a decent set-up: a group of characters are trapped in a stuck lift, and one of them holds a secret that's going to put them into a dangerous situation. It's a clear copy of the recent Shyamalan-produced horror movie DEVIL, except this one's non-supernatural. The box proclaims that it's the film that DEVIL could have been, but that's a downright lie.

Because ELEVATOR is a disappointment. Sure, the set-up is fine and the character mix is okay. You can't really fault the acting, either, even if most of the cast are unrecognisable aside from THE FLY's John Getz playing a typically jerkish character. Everyone puts in solid, if unspectacular performances, and I did like Joey Slotnick as the loud-mouthed comedian despite his character's brash, irritating nature.

The problem with this is the script. It's fair to say that nothing really happens in ELEVATOR, and there's certainly nothing here to make this unmissable viewing. I can think of two good, suspenseful sequences in the entire movie, and the rest of it is just endless build-up leading to a pay-off that never arrives. I actually enjoyed the first half more than the second, purely because of the expectation value. The ending is particularly disappointing and lightweight.

This should have been much better than it is, because Stig Svendsen does a good job of shooting within the claustrophobic confines of his small-scale set and there are all the right ingredients; it's just that they don't amount to much in the end. And the incredibly irritating girl in it should have been killed; it was criminal that she never got punished for her daft actions.

So this gem is now available on Netflix and I recommend it. Well acted and pretty well paced little film about a group of strangers (well a few know each other but I will not say how) that get on an elevator. By interesting means, the elevator gets stuck and from there, the film really takes off as the group is in severe danger.

The cast of characters are perfectly suited for this kind of film. A little something for everyone if you will.

Being slightly claustrophobic myself, I felt the tension in the elevator. The characters really play off each other well (especially the wise-cracking comic and the snotty little girl)and you sense that once you figure out the trouble, that it seems genuine and real. A very short movie (a little over an hour and 15 minutes long), the last 10 minutes really were not needed, I think it was just added to make the length of the movie more industry standard acceptable. A fast catchy beginning sets an early pace that never really dulls.

6.25 out of 10. Good enough for a watch and some popcorn.

"Elevator" in most respects has a pretty simple plot - almost too simple, which made me think it would be rather thoughtless. A bunch of people are stuck on an elevator - and there happens to be a bomb among them. So, the question is, can they get unstuck in time before the bomb goes off.

There's nothing complicated or pretentious here, and the movie is barebones. Except for a few minutes in both the opening and the closing, the entire movie is set on the crowded elevator. At first, they don't know there's a bomb, and you basically just watch the group dynamic among a diverse group of people who deal with being trapped in a variety of ways - from complete calm to claustrophobia. For a while I was thinking that just the story of this diverse group being stuck together could have made for an interesting study of group dynamics without the bomb, and I was wondering if introducing the bomb was necessary. The bomb actually worked surprisingly well. The whole group dynamic study was still there, but the introduction of the added tension worked very well to ratchet this up.

None of the characters were well developed, but we learn enough about them as they interact on the elevator to at least get a sense of who they are. None of the actors are major stars. The best known and most recognizable to me was probably Jerry Slotnick. That lack of a big name created more a of a composite cast and helped us focus on the group rather than on one individual within the group. There are some story points that didn't work all that well for me. The reporter beaming some video out on her cell phone seemed contrived; and the attempt to free the elevator using a small crack through which an arm could be reached had predictable results - why would anyone even try that, given that the result of any success was so obvious? All things considered though I was surprised by how watchable I found this, made even more so by its very short (1:20) run time. (7/10)

This film begins in New York with a lavish party being held in the penthouse of a high-rise building on Wall Street. To that effect, the CEO of the corporation holding the event, by the name of "Henry Barton" (John Getz), joins several other people in the elevator to take them to the event. In the elevator with him is his young granddaughter, "Madeline Barton" (played by both Rachel Pace and Amanda Pace), along with several employees who work for Henry Barton. Also included in this group is a stand-up comedian by the name of "George Axelrod" (Joey Slotnick), who is extremely claustrophobic and lets everybody know how he feels about the elevator being too crowded. Being quite mischievous, Madeline decides to play a prank on him by pressing the emergency stop button near the 49th floor. What she doesn't realize, however, is that the gears on the elevator are in need of repair, and as a result, there is no immediate way to get out of their current dilemma. Even worse is the fact that one of the other people in this group has brought a bomb into this elevator, which is set to detonate within two hours, and this may not be enough time for maintenance to correct the situation. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this turned out to be a fairly entertaining movie which managed to keep my attention pretty much from start to finish. Admittedly, the film could have also used a bit more suspense here and there, but even so, it was good enough for the time spent, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.