Brakathor This review is essentially for anyone who has already seen the film, and thought it was amazingly intelligent, well done, and coherently put together. The end of the film presents us with a picture of finality, that our main protagonist pulled off the perfect crime, and got away with it without any suspicion or investigation against him, and made a slick easy 2 million dollars that was untraceable. If you accept this premise, then you accept that all the law enforcement investigating the case, as well as those involved had the intelligence of 5 year olds.One of the most damning aspects I think, is the idea that no link could be established between the main protagonist and his 2 accomplices who he was friends with, the girl, who he was in a relationship with. To believe this, you have to believe that of the many people who had seen his 2 accomplices on university campus which is where he met them, NO ONE had seen him with them, and more than that, think about how they would have had to have not mentioned him to ANYONE they know; no mention of him to ANY of their friends or family, or on sites like facebook, twitter, phone records even; NOTHING; no link whatsoever. All it would have taken was a tiny link which is hard to believe didn't exist, especially in the case of his female accomplice who was in love with him, and he would be facing a very fervent investigation down his throat.With that impossible hurdle aside, we come to the many flaws in the execution of the crime itself. Firstly, he gives his male accomplice a gun with blanks, yet he gives his female accomplice a gun with real bullets, and it just so happens she ends up shooting one of the 3 hostages, contrary to his plan. This firstly, looks very staged, and secondly it makes no sense that he would risk giving one of them an armed gun, and the other not. In terms of evidence of him being in the house, you see him gloveless touching quite a lot of things and the house does NOT get burned down, not to mention tire tracks of his own car in the surrounding dirt road areas which would have made his story inconsistent. In addition to this, the 2 remaining hostages DO hear the protagonist talking over the phone, yet they don't recognize his voice when he comes to the door. Picture being blindfolded, terrorized, and the only thing you hear is this man's voice. I guarantee that voice will be running through your head for weeks.Now the incidentals, the worst of which is the female accomplice being killed by the male accomplice. Even though the guy was unstable, supposedly she was still his best friend, so although not impossible, it doesn't make any sense that he would kill her so glibly. Why this is important, is because if HE didn't kill her, the protagonist who is somewhat being presented in a sympathetic way would have had to kill his own girlfriend. This seems too staged and convenient, and none of it really seems to mesh. As a side note, I found it somewhat tacky how the third father ends up forking over a million dollars, when at this point he has seen or heard NO actual evidence of what his friends are saying. THEY could be scamming him for all he knows.I am just a random idiot of average intelligence, so if these glaringly obvious inconsistencies are obvious to ME, just imagine how much more evidence and suspicion a highly intelligent crime investigator would have against our protagonist, and keeping in mind only a SINGLE ONE of my points would have had to catch someones attention for a large investigation to be launched against our protagonist causing them to realize "AHA! He was the son of the butler, now we have a connection. Now we have a motive. Now we know how he acquired access to the house. Now we know how he knew about this gathering". We the viewers in the end are supposed to believe that he was foolish enough to commit so many very simple errors, yet clever enough to work out an elaborate money laundering scheme and phone location rerouting system. I think not, and then the worst thing films like these can ever do is done by dipping the viewer's nose in the "cleverness" of this very flawed plot premise in the closing narration, rather than serving up a more ambiguous ending.

scoup Entitled takes your basic movie kidnapping ransom plot and freshens it up through good acting, plot twists and accessibility.Excellent casting. Each actor felt natural in their part and with some restraint to avoid overacting they gel nicely. The first character death is almost welcome due to the annoyance of his behavior.Here's the best part of the movie: As the plot moves along and the viewer watches with anticipation of the stereotypical progression, we are happily dealt nice little twists. No twist is over the top or pushing the limits of belief. A subtle film noir feel is mixed with an everyman identification.I'd like to see another movie like this one...

Sil This film is a huge disappointment. I was looking forward to it, reading critiques about how un-Hollywood this film was. The truth is, the scenario is so weak it isn't even funny.You plan on getting a USD 3 million ransom so who do you take to help you? Of course 2 dumb losers. And as a loser how dumb do you have to be to not question you being chosen for a 3 million dollar high risk kidnapping?Then you go on kidnapping people but of course without mask it's way better this way. It is certainly not telling your hostages that you intend to kill them in the end.You then expect the money to be wired in a few hours but of course this doesn't mean someone should guard the hostages: a million dollar an hour certainly is too low a compensation. Let's play video games very loudly instead so as not to hear anything.And when the leader is going to talk with the hostages he is wearing a mask but this doesn't surprise his 2 associates who were mask-less from start to finish? Nothing ticks in their minds that something could be fishy?And why not kill a hostage while being on the phone negotiating the ransom? Why not let the killed hostage where he is and not move it away from the other two? Also of course a shot in this neighborhood is very common and no one will call the police telling them they heard a gun shot.Why not being so dumb a leader that you allow the killer woman associate to wander as she wants? And sure she's got to taunt the 2 remaining hostages and explain the plan from a to z. because they're worth it. This smells like a bad scenario trying to insert a weak justification for later and of course it is.The money is finally wired and received, your leader tells you to meet him at a gas station (why not at the house you might ask) and let the hostages go. As 2 associates whose faces were never hidden you are happy to let the hostages go because the money was wired? You don't for a single moment fear the hostages will recognize you and you'd better kill them before? You don't ask yourself why the leader would come with such an order?But then your gun has fake bullets because your leader doesn't trust you. He did when you killed an hostage but not anymore. So he probably stealthily changed the bullets in front of everybody. Also in the forest as 2 hostages against a kidnapper without bullets you don't try to fight? And as an associate who hates rich kids and just understand you had fake bullets, you don't try to catch the kids or at least one of them and inflict maximum pain & kill? Or is it only possible to kill someone with bullets?It turns out the leader planned all along to kill the two antisocial dumb associates and planned the whole thing with his father, a majordomo to the rich people whose kids are hostages. The leader after explaining everything to his associate (to show how the screen writer was smart)shoots said associate point blank between the 2 eyes because it's the easiest way not to get blood on himself and also because people who want to suicide generally aim between their eyes.And now we discover even more incoherences. Why could the hostages escape through the forest? Why didn't they just run to the nearest neighbor especially when the kid knows the neighborhood so well because it turns out he was kidnapped in his father's home? The sub-story with the laptop that could explode isn't believable and even if it did, it wouldn't explain why the kidnappers wouldn't remotely explode it if the hostages escaped.The story with the leader coming to the ransomed's house doesn't add up either. If the wife really did worry after her husband, why did she not call? When the police analyzes the crime it won't be difficult to check that the wife neither called the house nor called his son to tell him she was worried after her husband but also to check that the son did call the ransomed. The leader will then have to explain why he lied and why he called the ransomed. He will also have to explain what he was doing at the gas station. And how he could hit an armed man and escape without the slightest scratch and why the armed man decided to commit suicide after that instead of running for his life.Finally checking many time the bank account status per internet makes it very difficult to locate the ransomer does it not?

Eddie The Entitled began well, with excellent cinematography helped by some aerial shots for the opening.The characters are all, unfortunately, written very shallowly, with almost no information provided beyond what is seen on screen.The plot concerns a young man, Paul, who is seen at the beginning struggling to get a job (even though he is perfectly qualified) and providing for his ill mother.Very quickly, the movie introduces Paul's plot to kidnap the silver-spoon-fed children of a trio of rich men. He himself looks like the rich men's children (college age, attractive, great hair), but apparently without the money.His accomplices are another college-age guy and girl. One seems to be his girlfriend (who doesn't seem to be his type) and the other is a Columbine-killer type.The movie begins to fail very quickly once the three young people are kidnapped. The main kidnapper is portrayed as very detail-oriented and together, very purposeful, but he makes mistake after mistake that drive the rest of the story, making it very contrived.SPOILERS FOLLOW The main kidnapper, Paul, is describes as very detail-oriented and his plot is intricate and involves a bit of preparation, but once the plot begins, he sits around letting things happen which threaten his success unnecessarily.His two cohorts are unstable, which he purposely knows, but he makes almost no effort to stop them from doing things to screw things up. Some of this unstable behavior turns out to have been acceptable, but there are some things that they do that he couldn't have foreseen but are played off as being foreseen by him.For example, he tells his Goth cohorts that there is an explosive device at the location where the fathers of his kidnap victims are waiting for the return of their kids. His goth girlfriend sneaks down to where the 3 kids are being held and tells them of this. Later it turns out that there is no such explosive device. 2 of the kidnapped kids escape (because -- duh -- no one was watching them) and make a bee-line for where the parents are waiting to warn them of the impending detonation. This beeline keeps them off the road so that they don't see the main kidnapper driving on the road. SO -- we are expected to buy that Paul planned on lying to his cohorts about the device knowing that they will spill its existence to the kidnappees, knowing that they will escape with enough time to hope to get to their parents' location, knowing that they will have to go through through the forest because they don't have time to follow the road and get their in time, knowing that it will keep them from seeing him escape... but none of it mattering because there really was no explosive device and if they had just been kept locked up there would have been no need for the subterfuge.Paul makes a point of giving his male cohort a 9mm with blanks, knowing that he would be trigger-happy. All of this is played off as having been part of his plan, that the intended to blame all of what happened on the two cohorts. But it is beyond intelligent belief to accept that he would have planned everything will so many details relying on the out-of-control behavior of the other two.The kidnapping is effected by the girl standing in the middle of the road. Coming up on a girl standing threateningly in the middle of the road, the driver is, of course, inclined to stop his car and walk up to her, allowing the Columbine-type guy to "surprise" him with the shotgun (wait, wasn't he NOT supposed to have been given a gun with real ammo?) The 3 kids are taken to the mountain home of one of the other rich parents, which is just 2 miles from where the rich parents are staying in the other mountain home. They are put in a storage space beneath the house. They are tied up and basically NOT WATCHED. Occasional visits are made to them to provide proof of life and to intimidate them.The kidnappers spend their time staring at an unchanging computer screen and playing violent First-Person Shooter video games. NO ONE is tasked with watching to make sure their kidnap victims do not escape.Paul knows that his two accomplices are mentally unhinged, and makes a point of loading blanks into the pistol he gives the guy, but the guy at other times has the shotgun that IS properly loaded, and Paul hands the shotgun to the girl who promptly kills one of the hostages with it. For such a prepared plan, it reeks of poor planning, yet such a glaring plot hole drives the story forward.He has given a pistol loaded with blanks to the other cohort. Later, when he tries to shoot one of the hostages with the gun, the man falls back as if hit but then gets up and runs away. He could have killed someone with it not realizing it was loaded with blanks by pressing it against their body or head. It simply should have been loaded with dummy rounds, which don't have any explosive force.There are other numerous dangling plot points and unanswered questions.END OF SPOILERS For a film that looks as good as it does on screen, and with good performances from the actors (although the kidnap victims are severely underutilized, especially Laura Vandervoort) it is decidedly disappointing that the story fails completely. With a running time of 1 hour, 25 minutes (without the end credits), there was ample time to flesh out the characters and fix the numerous plot holes. It seems to come down to lazy story-telling in the end.The end result is a bad film, not worth watching.