3

After being kidnapped and held hostage, a man is tortured by a former military officer to get a confession out of him regarding a rape incident she held against him but was never convicted of, and the more they try to get the confession out of him the more the changing situation warps their mission.

This was a pretty solid variation on this particular genre of feature. The initial setup of what's going on, setting up the entire scenario around a revenge-based series of interactions and beatings designed to beat a confession out of the supposed guilty party responsible for a debilitating rape before the film starting, manages to set this one up rather well. It establishes the supposedly noble or skeevy actions of all involved rather quickly, generating enough sympathy or outrage for their actions that sets this up for what goes on as the various tortures and questionable tactics being utilized to try to get the proper confession out of him. This brings about a solid series of revelations and twists about what's going on as the story keeps changing making everything seem all the more bewildering the longer it goes on as the psychological mind games being employed are just as impactful as the brutality in the tactics being used to get to the bottom of what happened. This allows for a solid series of somewhat graphic attacks that are part of the attacks, making for the positive points here. There are some minor drawbacks on display with this one. One of the biggest issues is the usual standard of flaws that come about with the film relying on such a flimsy story to set everything in motion. Since the initial incident regarding what happened to the girl is so shoddily explained and never really given an in-depth explanation that spells out all the details so that the torture feels warranted, it comes off with a sense of just a demented individual doing something for the sake of the girl. The interactions that take place here regarding the victim being tortured for what went down are hackneyed and quite flimsy, and while it's understandable given the series of revelations that come about that question whether or not these events actually happened but it still forms such a highly conflicting setup that renders the interrogation methods as being far more outside the realm of what her ever-changing claims make them out to be. Any sense of realism is taken away by what happens throughout here but this does bring about a problematic entry point being so farfetched and flimsy from the very beginning, but otherwise, it's not that bad of a feature.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, and Brief Nudity.

This is the worst movie I have seen in years. Horrible acting ad directing and basically no story. The good reviews are obviously fake. You've been warned

Although the concept was far from an original one and had the danger of being very schlocky if executed wrongly, it was pretty intriguing at the same time and did have potential to be unsettling if handled correctly. Have an appreciation for films that balance horror, mystery and thriller. The cover looked creepy and grabs the attention. There was not an awful lot going for '3' otherwise but the potential was there.

'3' is a long way from unsettling and leans more towards the schlocky side of things. Will say right now that to me there are far worse films out there, both of my recent viewings and ever, and there are films that wasted their potential far more and to a worse degree (most of them though had potential that was bigger than that in '3'). This is not being said with any malice or prejudice, nor with any intent of disliking '3', part of me was really wanting to like it and hope that '3' would exceed my mixed expectations.

There is in '3' a spooky setting and moments of slick photography. Unfortunately that is pretty much it for the positives.

Going on the many negatives, the characters have no dimension or development to make them remotely interesting. Nor do they have any traits in making them rootable, the motivations are only bare bones and at times random and nothing more and the way they behave irritates and lacks logic. This does affect the acting which never rises above mediocre and is at worst atrocious. The victim fares least badly because there was some effort but too many parts are either overplayed or anaemic, never believed or cared for his plight.

Furthermore, '3' is directed with little enthusiasm and no tension and the script, especially the heavy emphasis on the back and forth, is needlessly repetitive, not interesting at all and very silly and stilted. Worst of all is the story, on top of dragging in pace and being contrived there is nothing remotely scary for the horror element to convince (not to mention the randomness of some of it, the gratuity of some of the content and there is a complete lack of creativity), it is sorely lacking in tension and suspense to be thrilling (the dragging pace killing it) and the mystery is really not much of one.

Overall, very bad. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Did M. Night Shyamalan right and direct this? It's a pretty good plot twister.

This is a low budget film but it's original with decent writing and an interesting story line. It's low budget but you won't feel ripped off for watching it, it isn't what you expect.