Wired Shut

Honestly, I don't think this film was that bad, but it wasn't that good either.

The only reason I'm giving this a 6 is because the crazy boyfriend was great and the daughter was hot. Otherwise, this film could've been a lot better than it was, starting with the writing and pacing.

Again another snails pace film made in lockdown which only has a small handful of actors in and expects them to carry the interest without anything happening for most of the film. The daughter is annoying, the fathers part is an easy acting roll, nothing to remember. Just another dull lockdown film, tired of watching them now, they should have stayed at home.

First thing first - the film has heavily botted ratings. All the 10/10 from bot accounts are desperate and pathetic. I don't know why filmmakers or publishers do this.

The accurate rating of this film depends on how you approach it.

Option 1: watch this as a horrendously pretentious thriller with borderline hilarious acting. Enjoyment level: around 5% (the most enjoyable thing is just how hard they are trying). 0.5/10 for the green beard and the red face.

Option 2: watch this as an experimental dark comedy. It cranks the cliche levels up to a maximum, breaking the dial. I laughed through most of the pretentiously scary moments and "plot twists". Enjoyment level: around 20%. 2/10 for making me sometimes laugh (mostly in-between the wandering around the house scenes).

Option 3: watch this as the Polite Leader from The Purge (2013) standalone backstory. I never thought this hilarious character needed his film, but here it is. It's a weird cosplay, yes, but if in a chance this was what you were looking for - you've got it. Enjoyment level: depends on how much you love the Polite Leader character from the purge.

I don't want to spend much time on the plot or characters. Briefly, the plot doesn't make any sense at all. The robbery plan doesn't work, the boyfriend is completely insane, and the daughter never saw this might be a problem. I guess she's not picky. They aren't even sure there is a safe with cash in the house, so their plan was just blind luck. The boyfriend's motivation probably wasn't the money at all. He likes to act insane and cry because of childhood trauma and domestic violence. I wonder what would happen if the father had just given the money straight away.

The film is intentionally slow, with lots of empty scenes. The beginning was exceptionally dull. There are no twists. It's a straight story.

The acting was mostly bad. The actor who played the boyfriend isn't Antony Hopkins, and his attempt at channeling wicker-man Nicolas Cage didn't work either.

The best thing about all this is how hard they are trying, starting with the "dude, check this cool shot" pretentious camerawork, followed by the acting, and solidified by the fake ratings botting.

Since I have seen this film already, I'll give you, a fellow thriller enjoyer, another option.

Option 4: don't watch this at all. Enjoyment levels: 95%. One for each minute you spend on something else instead.

Firstly the music was great. The lighting and colour hue was wonderful. Great camera work. There were actually quite a few cool things that grabbed my attention, but it just didn't get there for me.

The long pause scenes, a little too long, but make sense. I appreciate slow burn films, but this just didn't fully deliver.

While I didn't overly like the movie, and I really wanted to because I did quite appreciate the elements, style and camera work. I really liked it visually. The writing was decent, but felt too predictable at times.

There's some definite potential with the writing of Peter Malone Elliott and Alexander Sharp. Definitely keep a watch out for Alexander Sharp because I feel he has got some extraordinary talent he has yet to unleash and share. I think he's on to a great start to be honest.

This was a better thriller than I thought it would be. Assuming from the description I thought it would just be another man alone in the house gets robbed movie, but no it was more whilst also being a bit of that. The fact of there only being three cast members helped me see each performance and learn who those characters were easier. Getting near the end of the film it almost turned into an expressive art piece of sorts with emmys boyfriend going into what seemed like madness. Altogether a pretty good thriller.