The Ruse

Baffled by the positive reviews for this drab film that feels like a low budget "made for TV" afternoon movie. The script is painful but not as achingly bad as the acting. The lengths characters go to to explain what's happening or has happened in the past it should be called "The Exposition". It will while away 90 minutes if you're incredibly bored on a rainy Sunday afternoon but otherwise I'd give it a miss.

Dale (Madelyn Dunedin) is a nurse assigned to the care of extremely ill dementia / emphysema patient Olivia (Veronica Cartwright), when the previous nurse suddenly leaves. Living with Olivia in a large isolated house, Dale is informed that the house is haunted and Olivia tells her that it is her late husband Albert and she does in fact starts hearing noises in the night.

The first two acts of this film are slow but interesting. It's spooky with shades of the supernatural, full of mystery and features a terrific performance from Veronica Cartwright. The final act though, without giving anything away is a completely different beast more akin to the resolution of a whodunnit, with a long winded Poirot type explanation. I quite liked the first part but was disappointed with the albeit twisty, moderately complex climax which seemed out of kilter with the rest of the film.

The Ruse is wildly overrated here by some dishonest promoters of this low budget, basic film. Even calling it a film is an overstatement. I do not know why I even watched the whole thing, but that's the reason I am giving it four stars - it is watchable in a Lifetime: Television for Women sort of way.

Really bad acting and plot. Felt like an amateur play. Some decent actors but dieing on their feet with this plot. They definitely won't be listing film on their resume/cv. Wanted to turn it off but it was left on in the background to drown out the neighbours music, if you like shouting at the tv it's a good film to get mad at. Don't believe for a moment the people who claim to have watched this at the cinema. It must have gone straight to dvd, my empathy to everyone who took part in this production hope you're ok.

I went into this movie only seeing the trailer and it seemed pretty interesting as I do like thrillers and mysteries. Had nothing to do on a Thursday afternoon so thought I'd give it a shot. It seemed promising for the first about 45 minutes to one hour, but the third act fell apart for me. I'm not really giving spoilers here, just wanted to give my opinion of what I thought of the movie and to be honest could've been better. I thought it was just the theater I was in, but reading a review from screen rant I see that there were audio issues in the movie. I don't understand what happened, but mic cutouts and sudden drops in the audio were kind of strange. Also, some of the action scenes felt very low budget and hacky. This movie felt more like a straight to streaming movie and not a movie theater release. They were only three other people with me in the theater and only one showing today so maybe that could've tipped me off. Not great, not the worst I've ever seen just merely OK, a premise that had promise.