Catch Hell

Ryan Phillippe's directorial debut 'Catch Hell' is a strange little movie. It's an interesting story that never really goes anywhere. The plot never really advances. And Phillippe in the lead role is never really given any opportunity to shine. He co-wrote the story as well so this surprised me. Surely when you write a character that you know you're going to play you give yourself every opportunity to be the star of the show, but this was never really the case. The kidnappers had the most interesting characters of the lot.

It's not an overly bad movie, it's just simply pretty forgettable. There's no element to it that separates it from the bunch. Does Phillippe have a future behind the camera? I don't see why not. This film would have been about as straight forward as they come to direct, but I still didn't see any glaring mistakes he made. The choice of the scene over the credits was a bizarre one for me. I'm not sure exactly what he was going for with that and I'd love to hear his explanation. Give it a look if you're short of something to watch but otherwise you're not missing a whole lot.

Ryan Phillippe directs and stars in Catch Hell the story of a film star on the downward slope of his career getting kidnapped by a pair of rednecks. One of them is Ian Barford who has a psychotic personality and a grudge against Phillippe for having a quickie with his wife. Poor Ryan he just can't remember who it was. Turns out she was a wardrobe girl on the set of one of his films. Barford and his nephew Stephen Louis Grush who's just a follower type drive off with him from his hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana and take him to a secluded cabin in the bayous.

Of course Barford wants to kill him, but he also wants to humiliate him as well so he gets Phillippe to cough up his computer and Twitter passwords and he starts posting all kinds of noxious material, the kind that has ruined the reputations of folks like Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson.

No doubt Ryan Phillippe was going for a gay audience as well because of Grush's character. Throughout the film he's giving the look of love to Phillippe as he's a most closeted gay man. Life throws Grush a real nasty curve however. It gets good and homoerotic with Phillippe and Grush.

I wish Phillippe had picked some better material for a directorial debut. But the man does show some promise there.

And the sheeple gain way and ridicule for another Hollywood false prophet........again.

Although the film is mediocre and you know the ending within the first 20 minutes I still have to give it 5 stars. Why? Because the beauty of these films is for one reason and one reason only. This society depends way too much about the Pitts and the Hanks and the Kardashians the Cruises the Bales the Hiltons etc...its an absolute disgust. We love a good falling down rich guy story or just being rich and famous fascinates most of this idiotic land mass. So here you go. Here's another one for ya to suck up and crap out.

I wasn't too sure what to make of this when I first read up on it however, after watching it I was really surprised.

The story line was really good, so was the acting. Maybe my expectations of the film were quite low as I hadn't heard much talk about it. So when I actually watched it, it exceeded the low expectations I had.

This movie keeps you gripped all the way through and has some twists and turns you weren't expecting which is great in any movie!

I'm no movie critic but in my opinion, this film is well worth a watch. Not the best kidnap film ever made, equally, it's still a good film with a strong story line and one I would recommend.

When I viewed this movie it was named "Chained".

It is a drama thriller about a Hollywood actor with a declining career who is kidnapped by thugs and held locked up in a remote cabin....

I thought the lead players all give full throttle performances including the baddies and the film is mostly compelling and well presented.

The very last sequence I found a little bit odd but despite that I was impressed with this picture and Ryan Phillippe is not someone who I had noticed before but he certainly has star quality:

7/10.