mac-165

Pace: slow. Bill Murray's sad and despondent faces: entertaining. Story: awful. Scenery: nice. Acting: OK, considering the weak plot.

If you like Bill Murray, watch Groundhog Day instead. He's funnier in that and that film has a proper ending, unlike this.

On the other hand, if you enjoyed the open-endedness of Lost In Translation, you may also like being dangled at the end of this one too.

This movie reminded me of Jim Carrey's "The Weather Man" - potentially a good plot with a great actor that just fails to deliver, and leaves you sadder for watching it, and being cautious about future movies starring the same actor.

It's up to you... if you have 106 minutes to kill and don't need a conclusive ending... who am I to stop you.

If you like to be scared, this movie is for you. It has a good sense of fear and anticipation.

But that may not be enough.

The plot is thin, the acting is OK, the SFX decent, the direction is mediocre, but there is no real point to this film.

While the writer and the director have tried to weave some reality into the plot, somehow it just feels like a movie and not like a real story.

It just fizzles out.

Yes, it's hard to re-create the drama of blockbuster scare-a-thons, but anyone who has seen more than a few thrillers will find this rather pedestrian.

My advice: watch "Firewall" instead, one of Harrison Ford's best films, and get a *real* sense of danger.

I watched this for 30 minutes, then thought about switching off. But instead, I consulted... (yes - IMDb!) and the average rating of around 7 was enough to convince me to finish watching the film.

Now I have just seen the whole thing, and I wish I had spent my time doing something else. Why? The acting was mostly OK, with the exception of Basinger, who I thought was unconvincing, and who had some awful lines. There were some moments of humour in this film which didn't sit right with me - I mean, make up your mind, producers/directors/scriptwriters - is this a kidnap movie or Bill and Ted's excellent road movie with guns and angry guys? The film is now 5 years old, and mobile technology - a central theme in the film - has moved on. My advice is to do the same.