Removal

REMOVAL is your standard psychological thriller set in a dark and sprawling old house. The main character is a cleaner who soon discovers his new place of work has some dark and disturbing murderous secrets to hide. While I appreciate that the filmmakers went out of their way to shoot something other than your bog standard CGI ghost film, the problem with REMOVAL is its familiarity. That, and the fact that protagonist Mark Kelly just isn't a very interesting actor.

This is a film which thinks it is far more original and cleverly-written than it really is. I could name one or two obvious inspirations on the story but I won't as these would give the game away. Let's just say that the film should have given thanks to those movies in the end credits. What we have in REMOVAL is your typical low budget filmmaking, a just-about-adequate type of movie that never really grips or blows you away as it should. It does feel very talky and bogged down in places. The cast features TWILIGHT's Billy Burke, a cameoing Elliott Gould playing a psychiatrist, and a big role for Oz Perkins (son of Anthony). Kelly Brook is here too, and the quality of her acting doesn't seem to have improved with the passage of time.

The soundtrack is just noise in the background that doesn't fit with the movie! This isn't a movie with Billy Burke. He's only in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Oz Perkins is a really bad, over-the-top actor. I'm sorry I paid to see this movie. What a disappointment!

It must be a fine balance to write a screenplay that consistently wrong-foots the audience, makes them smile occasionally while delivering a fairly grim and creepy story, and ensures that it all makes sense too. Nick Simon, who directs and co-writes achieves this very nicely. There's an irresistible grim strand of humour running through this, although the main character Cole has little to be cheerful about. Mark Kelly is very good as the flawed central character, fighting several of his own personal demons, as well as the manipulations of those around him. Even Oz Perkins as the the unpleasant Henry Sharpe has a dry line in humour.

That the twists and turns pay off is a bonus - it isn't always the case, and while there's nothing wrong with open-ended stories, it's good to have things tied up here. Morte than that I won't reveal.

As a chiller about a put-upon industrial cleaner, Removal works very well indeed. My score is 9 out of 10.

If NOT for the fantastic performance from Mark Kelly playing cleaner Cole Hindin (it helped that I had a huge crush on him during this, but that didn't alter my review), some good cinematography and a great soundtrack/score, 'Removal' (5/10) would be a complete waste. Why? Well, I can't say without spoiling the movie's over-used "secret" that I almost missed. I'll be honest, I usually see this coming, and I did kinda get it through the movie with the numerous clues. Part of the problem was the enormously bad acting from the movie's homeowner, Henry Sharpe (Oz Perkins). In fact, it was so obviously bad, you knew something was up. That said, again, Mark did such a good job, you'd think you were watching a Class A movie vs. the B-movie it was. It's worth a rental if you like those suspenseful (lite) thinkers involving a recovering and separated man, Cole, who witnessed his best friend, Eric, kill himself following Eric killing his own wife. Time has passed and now Cole's being summoned to conduct a solo yet "3-Person" cleaning job at a massive mansion overnight. Cole's suspicious of the owner's secretive nature regarding the quick/quiet job and the weird disappearance of his own wife. See it on the cheap.

Oz Perkins is best known as the writer/director of great recent films The Monkey and Longlegs, as well as the criminally overlooked The Blackcoat's Daughter. He is also a solid actor, and gives his best performance in 2010's Removal. Playing a rich, entitled monster can go wrong in many ways in the wrong actor's hands but Perkins absolutely knocks this out of the park. He also cowrote the screenplay, which is strong. Billy Burke gets top billing, but is very much in a supporting role. Perkins steals the show with a performance that deserves so much more attention than it will ever get. Highly recommended.