Movie review:This movie has some of the most top and bottom of the board type ratings on IMDb. You will have to judge for yourself. 5 friends are on their way home from a wedding in Canada and are stopped at the border before returning to the USA. Seems simple enough, but who exactly are they stopped by? Well if you guessed a couple of lunatics that are played to absolute perfection in being the epitome of terrorist fearing wackos, you win a prize. So after an extremely long, drawn out process of taking them in (in other words, abducting), the group is taken into custody where they are tortured into admitting that they are enemies of the United States. Granted one of them was of foreign decent, so I guess he MUST be a terrorist. This is the premise of the whole movie. The entire movie is secluded to where they are held captive, which is basically outside in animal cages so can't say much for scenery unless you are a big fan of forests. A part of me was drawn into this plot, though after seeing just how some people will stereotype people in everyday life and frightens me to think just how realistic this actually could be. Since it never goes over the top, it really just keeps you at a numbing, "what if" type feeling as you watch the psychological torture they are put through. I can't really say the acting aside from Michael Mando who plays Jalii, the aforementioned "brown" guy, is all that good. Mando does deserve credit though for making a few scenes very believable. They do toss in a sub plot of one the kids parents hiring a PI to find them after they have gone missing, but it is completely underdeveloped and could've been removed completely with no impact to the film. In the end, I overall was disappointed, as it had the tools and actors to make it work, it just dropped the ball in tension creating situations or just a natural feeling of caring at all. If you do see it, you will probably understand why one review will say "total garbage" while the next will say "loved it" I somehow stayed in between. It may be classified as horror, but it is more thriller than anything. 4.7/10 IMDb 5.0
Review of Territories
