Rancid: Escolhido para Morrer

It's always worrying when asked about a film and the only thing you can say as a positive is that it had boobs in it. And that's only from the perspective of women-lovers everywhere....

Now, don't get me wrong, this film does have merit. Unfortunately, that is that it had the good sense to rip EVERY idea it had from other, more memorable examples of the crime/thriller genre. Everything you see will be familiar, even if you aren't sure why.

It looks good enough. It sounds good enough. The people are beautiful enough. The stroy is interesting enough. But is it good enough to watch...No.

I am tired of seeing cutie-pie-guys who never comb their hair and have a see-thru beard. Matthew Settle (leading actor): of course is also a slob: with a messy apartment, dirty dishes, and who drinks instant coffee. But the teenyboppers will love him.

Now you've got to amplify his character by making him a loser (and with bad dialogue; trying to make good on sentences like: puke on the floor, and, hole in the head). He's a goof who has previously expressed to people that he desires to be a writer, but when his past friends inquire about his progress, (6 years later), he covers up about still being on page one.

Page one!

Yes … page one is revealed by a former girlfriend, now extramarital affair partner, making this viewer wonder if he is … who knows … maybe a chronic masturbator because of his lack of writing?

This movie could be considered as a learning film for the young just to show them an imbecile adult. With a good example being when he destroys valuable glass figurines from a mantle in a playful way; probably in order to put the blame on someone else for his own ineptness. Although he does accept blame when he and his former girlfriend talk about the abortion that he failed to do correctly several years before, resulting in her inability to have children in future attempts. Nevertheless, they deem their screw-ups as minor compared to the millionaire husband, who gets condemned for just making some illegal business ventures, and for slapping his unfaithful conniving wife.

So now we've got an immature woman involved, only caring about money, revenge, and participating in the two (yes two) affairs she's involved with. And you will see Mr. Inept parking right in front of the house he wants to enter to commit murder, along with seeing him mosey to an entrance while security guards are patrolling the grounds.

Lots more take place; which includes detectives: one of which is an old buddy of the inept writer, and who has a great deal of problems himself. That detective (Patrik Ersgard) was sort of okay. I did like the millionaire, Currie Graham. And if you can manage to gruel out Mr. inept writer's disposition, you can actually see a decent story take place - WITH A FEW UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS.

If this movie had (a) been better directed and produced, and (b) had half decent acting throughout, it would have been a fairly decent 90 minutes of my life taken up on a Saturday evening. I now wish i'd gone out and spent the £3.95 on a couple of beers down the local pub instead. It tried far too hard to be slick and clever, but fell very badly at every turn. I would steer clear of this at your local DVD rental shop and go for something good! How it got the near 6 out of 10 mark on IMDb, i'm not sure. If you're looking for an entertaining, fast paced thriller with a wicked twist and an awesome story-line, PLEASE don't bother renting this, I was truly disappointed and annoyed that I spent nearly £4 to hire it, and the guy behind the counter didn't think it good customer service to inform me on just how bad it is. If you don't want to take my word for it, that's fine, just let it be known that I did tell you so...

Excellent thriller with a slick cool look. The story is intense and the plots twists and turns, it keeps you guessing all the way to the end. As far as thrillers goes, this is as good as it gets. The acting is great and it's good to see Matthew Settle in a staring role. He has movie star quality and works great in this one. The narration is broken up and consists of flashbacks which adds to the building of tension. The movie is shot in studios in Sweden and the exterior in New York. The sets are just great and you could never guess that the movie isn't made on location in New York. If you like fast pacing slick thrillers then you should catch this one.

This movie reminds me of one of those plastic hamster wheels. It goes pretty fast, and gets pretty intense, but in the end, you're left in exactly the same place that you started. It starts out pretty slowly, and at first I wasn't inclined to like it too much. There is no noticeable soundtrack to this one, so it's devoid of a good atmosphere (which a good suspense/thriller needs), and this gives the whole package a very 'hollow' feel, like it's a low budget movie. The directing is lackluster in the respect that those damn camera zoom-ins get really irritating by the end of the film. I've never seen a movie that overused aerial shots like this, and that's probably because it's a bad idea. But despite all that, I enjoyed this movie.

The plot is rich and leaves a lot for you to ponder over while the cameras are rolling, and the characters all give off very memorable and believable performances. This is a very dark and gritty film, reminding me of what A Killer Within should've been, but wasn't exactly. The plot twists at the end are unexpected, and maybe they weren't executed as well as they could've been, but it's all fine and dandy with me. While most of the movie is a bit slower and building things up, with the romantic tension and such, the last half hour or so is very intense and bloody, and I'm left very satisfied with this film overall. While the rather open-ended ending left me feeling empty (that whole hamster wheel analogy), this film manages to build up a crescendo of surprising energy that left this movie as quite a good offering of crime/thriller action. Recommended to fans of the genre.