L'Employeur

I've seen so many of these types of movies. Cube (also has 2 sequels) was one of the earlier good ones (where random people are stuck in various adjoining rooms with "puzzles to solve"). A more recent one that is better than Employer is Exam (2009) - rated 6.8 and with many great twists. Other similar movies involving people killing each other off in a "room" include: Devil 6.3 (2010) - people stuck in an elevator, The Killing Room 5.7(2009) - people in an scientific experiment, Unknown 6.5 (2006) - people stuck in a warehouse, Fermat's Room 6.6 (2007 - foreign language) - 4 mathematicians in a rm, The Method 7.3 (2005 - foreign language) - interview process Overall Cube (the first one) wins with 7.4 rating and oddly enough being the oldest (1997). Enjoy these movies if you like the genre.

I just caught this movie and it was a powerful look at capitalism. The monologue by Malcolm McDowell at the end of the movie helps to deconstruct the basic ideals of the corporate world. Endure with this murderous tale filled with hopes of a peaceful escape, where the gore is aptly used for effect, stereotypes questioned and the interview process taken to a whole new level (while still being relateable to the actual job market). The variety of roles, the differing characteristics of the main five characters; all fitted in with flashbacks to show "how they got there?" and the overlooking McDowell.

With Billy Zane at the end, the use of music, good interview questions which foreshadow the coming violence and the simplicity of the characters and their lives help to fill out the 90 minutes extremely well. Watch it at night to help set the atmosphere, and for some reason reminded me of "Cube".

6/10 - got across what it set out to do with interesting shifts and entertaining, didn't try to do too much and built the characters slowly (but the interviewing flashbacks reveal future actions later in the movie).

Well that was boring, halfway through I began fast forwarding through the rest.

The premise of people trapped in a room, is old. People trapped in a room for a job, has already been done too (can't remember the name of the movie though).

The production value is inexistent. My HDCam makes better pictures than what I've seen here. Acting is bad, lighting is awful, score is generic, nothing in this movie is new.

McDowell played 6 minutes in this movie, he probably just needed a morning to get the filming done. Well, lately he showed up in Z-Grade movies anyway. Seeing him casted is a strong indicator for a poor movie.

Please excuse my low quality review, but I just did it to balance the 10/10 fake reviews written by the PR guys.

Another story about a group of strangers locked together in an enclosed space, hoping for a way out. In here, these five are job applicants; in the last step to join a powerful corporation, only one can leave the room with the job... and their life.

I really like this kind of film; it is always such a psychologically heavy concept, often accompanied by interesting twists and thought- provoking mindgames...

Unfortunately, 'The Employer' fails in that aspect.

The movie is too short and moves too fast to create the necessary tension in the room scenes, and the characters/actors are so bad they are unable to create any interest in the viewer. And it is far from just the actors' faults (though they have their share on it): the characters are horribly conceived and developed, their actions not making sense and being overly ruthless/psychopathic to the point of being unbelievable/almost cartoonish.

This makes the twists almost pointless and their impact almost nonexistent. The psychological aspect the film needed ends forgotten and ignored.

Malcolm McDowell is the only one to do a good job, and his character is quite fun to watch (though equally bad). A sharp contrast to the otherwise terribleness.

In the end, this film is far too moronic and badly made. It can't even pass as a idiotic, semi-gory thriller, as the anti-capitalistic stance the film seems to defend (considering the way they portray the big corporations) show they tried to make this have some kind of half-assed message. In other words, they actually believed this could be good.

I give it a 4 just because I love this concept, which made me try to like it, but in the end it could very well receive a lower rating. Much better choices would be 'Exam', 'La habitación de Fermat', and even the 'Cube' franchise.

If you want to listen to some interesting interview questions probably discarded by Google and Amazon HR professionals, then Malcolm McDowell is your man. He is always entertaining, but the writing here is a bit uneven, so he repeats himself a lot in this film.

This a very rare miss by David Dastmalchian, who is the best actor of his generation. But he can only play the cards he is dealt with; and those cards in this script are limited.

This scenario has already been done with Cube, and vaguely similar to Saw, but without the newness of the situation in Cube. I like Zane's performance as well, but it was cut short (no pun intended). The film is actually fairly predictable, and for that reason, I had to give it a 5.