Disquiet

This is quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I for the life of me cannot understand why JRM would do this, he must have been in need of some quick cash.

The simplistic religious undertones are obvious as soon as one of the characters claims she is Dr. Lily and does not like to be called Lilith.

The whole thing is just really bad. It skips all over the place, uses illogical flashbacks within flashbacks yet tries so hard to be taken seriously by heaping on some childish heavy-handed morality play.

I can only recommend this movie if you want to see an example of what really bad filmmaking is.

I find it hard to believe one adult wrote this, another adult directed it, and another adult produced it, as it seems like something out of the mind of a 13-year-old hopped up after a Sunday school sermon.

Disquiet is a pseudo intellectual film, in the same way that M. Night Shyamalan films are pseudo intellectual.

You can tell they were going for a The Sixth Sense type of model here.

Though, it doesn't quite work as well.

The whole thing is effectively the same film as Wristcutters: A Love Story, just with people in comas, instead of people who have committed suicide.

However...it's just not very entertaining.

You strain to keep track of everything, knowing a big revelation is on it's way.

But it just doesn't hit like it should.

They got something akin to A Field In England going on- with angels and demons in play, to give it a bit of nuance.

Alongside a sort of Wizard Of Oz angle, where those trapped in this world must "learn their lesson" in order to escape.

But most don't.

And if you die in the game...you die in real life.

To be fair...there's definitely something to the concept.

It's actually a pretty cool idea (which likely isn't far off from the "real life" state of things - think, like The Matrix).

However, the story- and execution of the idea behind it- need to be improved.

I chock up it's failure to impress, to it's pseudo intellectual nature.

As it's just outside of that sweet spot in the middle ground.

Not being intellectual enough to please the cinerati...and too complex for your average Netflix viewer.

Meaning that it's not likely to please anyone.

3 out of 10 (for trying).

The plot is so transparent and derivative that nothing I write here could possibly come as a surprise when it happens on screen.

I used to do SFX makeup for haunted houses where we had like 15 minutes per person and had to do a dozen each a night. Even though it was only (barely) seen in a dark, poorly lit room by kids and/or drunk adults, it all STILL looked better than what's shown here.

I swear, the brunette looks like her "stitches" are some kids temporary tattoos they're so bad. The "creepy" nails on the old man literally look like they're just cut out of old yellow tape and stuck it on. I am gobsmacked that anyone thought ANY of that was good enough for film, and I'm not even watching on an HD set!

Not worth renting, not worth watching. At all.

Sam wakes up from a coma to a nightmarish scenario, he's in a hospital, and everyone seems to want to kill him, he encounters some people, seemingly in the same situation that he's in.

Can someone please explain to me, why is an actor with the looks and talent of Jonathan Rhys Meyers doing trash like this, he's such a good actor, he's genuinely wasted here.

The plot is wafer thin, it's pretty obvious to even the most casual of viewers exactly what is going on here, it's s truly frustrating affair.

I had high hopes after that initial opening sequence, it out me in mind of the very first episode of The Walking Dead, it was creepy and surreal, after that it just nosedives.

If you've watched Inside no.9, it feels like they've nicked the plot of its greatest episode, The Twelve Days of Christine, and tried to rework it into a supposed horror film.

This really just didn't work at all.

3/10.

Well, this movie certainly was in a league of its own.

I had not heard about this 2023 thriller titled "Disquiet" from writer and director Michael Winnick prior to stumbling upon it by random chance. And seeing that the movie had Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the leading role, I figured that chances were that it might be a watchable enough movie.

However, I opted to scroll through some reviews of the movie prior to watching it, and those weren't painting the movie in a good light. Yet, I still opted to give "Disquiet" the benefit of the doubt. Though, I ended up turning off the movie with just about 20 minutes left to watch. But I have to admit that I was bored senseless by that point, and just couldn't take more of the torment that is "Disquiet".

Writer and director Michael Winnick put together a very, very bland script for the movie. And there wasn't much of anything that really made much of any coherent sense throughout the course of the movie. It felt, for the most parts, just like the writer and director made things up as the shooting of the movie progressed.

The acting performances in "Disquiet" were fair enough. Not Jonathan Rhys Meyers finest work by any means, but watchable nonetheless. There were three familiar faces on the cast list here for me, that being Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Lochlyn Munro and Garry Chalk.

Visually then "Disquiet" was an okay movie. The special effects were fair enough, but nothing that had me impressed or anything. But it was just lacking that particular ingredient to make it outstanding.

For a thriller then "Disquiet" was a rather strange one. I am sure that there is an audience out there for a movie such as "Disquiet", I just happened not to find much of any enjoyment in the movie.

My rating of "Disquiet" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars.