Squatters

In Venice, California, Kelley Tanner (Gabriela Wilde) and Jonas Trumball (Thomas Dekker) are homeless teenagers that live on the beach and spend the day using drugs, drinking booze and shoplifting to survive. One day, Jonas overhears a conversation in a parking area between a woman named Evelyn (Lolita Davidovich) and her housekeeper, and Evelyn tells that she will travel for one month with her husband David (Richard Dreyfuss) and she gives the alarm code to her servant. Jonas sees the chance to rob the house and brings Kelley that is drugged with him. Kelley is needy of family love since she was a foster girl that left her foster house to live on the streets, and she spend the days watching to home videos and getting evolved with Evelyn, David, their son Michael (Luke Grimes), who has a poster of "The Kid" in his room, and their deceased daughter Stephanie. But Jonas is interested in robbing as much as possible to start a new life in Mexico. He meets a dangerous criminal to deal the jewelry and the Porsches of the family. But the family returns and Kelley and Jonas need to flee from the house. When Kelley is wandering on the streets, she stumbles with a movie theater that is showing Charles Chaplin's "The Kid". She buys a ticket and realizes that she is alone in the theater; out of the blue, Charles enters in the theater and sits near her. Soon they drink coffee together and Michael dates Kelley and falls in love with her. Kelly does not disclose her past to Michael but soon she is haunted by what she did.

"Squatters" is a movie with a flawed, but pleasant story of love and redemption. Gabriela Wilde has a sweet face but her characters changes too much after a bath, from a drugged to an almost innocent teenager. The story works well until the rushed romance between Michael and Kelley. The plot should have extended their love to make sense the conclusion, with Kelley's redemption and acceptance of Michael and his family. Despite the unbelievable conclusion, the movie deserves a chance to be watched. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Desabrigados" ("Unsheltered")

Was too fakey right from the start. Most dumpster diving streeters look nothing like our Hollywood made up with make up, eye candy actors. The ripping off of a small deli scenes were Holly stereotyping; the grungy look was too wardrobe department shopping; the dirty faces/bodies looked like what a make up artist would create with a brush and the same medium gray water based paint - brush painting in all the right places. More laughable than real. The matrix slow motion effects were as cheap as the very fake punches being thrown in one scene. The owners' reactions to home invasion and serious theft - "What's for dinner!" Son in owner's family predictably and unimaginatively falls for our now magically transformed theft girl (Cinderella after a bath and stolen clothes.) and like all love stories (well, Hollywood love stories) he never truly leaves her.

Roughly equivalent to daytime tele soap opera production if that is one's entertainment interest.

Whoever wrote this must have never left the suburbs. I've been homeless and never saw other homeless people walk around with a dirty face. You can't sleep on the beach in California. They make sure everyone is off the beach at 10:00 pm. They even have helicopters with searchlights overhead to make sure no one is hanging back.An amateur cracking a safe? Please. Next time you write a movie try to do a little research. They also find clothes that just fit them.This story has more holes in it than swiss cheese. I' sorry but the sloppy writing kept me distracted. I couldn't enjoy the movie. The acting was good. Too bad it wasn't enough.

A gem, a tense thriller about homeless young squatters who break into a rich couple's home and squat and steal from them while they are on vacation. The movie takes place in Venice Beach, a couple of young drug addicted homeless squatters break into a wealthy house off the beach where the squatters sleep under the life guard station. The leads are great Thomas Decker plays an amoral mercenary drug addict who is out for himself. Gabriella Wilde plays a lost homeless girl who still has a conscience which alludes to her previous life before she became homeless and addicted to drugs. Some of the extras seem as though they are real street toughs which gives it a cinema verite quality. The makeup is effective and realistic as they are very dirty. Reminiscent of other drug movies and film noir. The film makers accomplished a feat which is to get the viewer to sympathize with both the homeless squatters and the family that they have taken advantage of. Early scenes of the young homeless couple having things they were cut off from such as taking a bath, wearing nice clothes and going to a restaurant are poignant, these scenes made me root for the squatters even though they were criminals. A gem, I recommend watching this, it's both touching and effective.

First, the director and the writer both need to be permanently banned from making any more stupid movies. Nothing is good about this. Bad acting, bad directing, bad art direction. Nothing is convincing and everything screams pretentious. Prop design and costume designers are beyond pathetic. I wonder if the whole crew got recruited from a local church stage acting somewhere. I got aggravated watching these fools delivering bad acting and bad plots. Did they not know the viewers are not as stupid as they wanted us to be? Who are the fooling? It all goes back to the sh**ty screenwriter and equally bad director getting together luring numb skulled producers to agree to fund this pathetic movie. I wish them all go to hell for wasting my time and making this nonsense movie.