What was missing for me is that moment when one actually cares about at least one of the characters in a film. There's not enough backstory to evoke a connected feeling to the plot drivers: not the small town Russian cafe girl, who invites Reeves' character to have sex for no apparent reason (no chemistry here); not her brother and his bro-gang (too old to be but still high school bully-pranksters); not the brutish, misogynistic gangster or his gold-chained bodyguards; and not the Cheater, the bad boy businessman with a proclivity for guns-and-money criminal activity. And who, in a state of extreme twitterpation, has lost the presence of mind required to realize a booty call to cafe girl has a significantly high probability to segue into scream-till-you-sell-your-soul pain and anguish and possible permanent disfigurement.
I had questions. Why did the writer bother to introduce the Reeves' character's wife? Yet fail to do a bit of gemological research for the sake of believe-ability? Why show the collective aptitude of brother's bro-gang in the first cafe scene, then again in the unnecessary and depressing hunting scene?
Then I thought--this movie was filmed in Canada (mostly), it cost two million to produce and barely broke half a million at the box office. So perhaps it was (unintentionally) born to be a tax write off for investors?
Better luck next time.
I had questions. Why did the writer bother to introduce the Reeves' character's wife? Yet fail to do a bit of gemological research for the sake of believe-ability? Why show the collective aptitude of brother's bro-gang in the first cafe scene, then again in the unnecessary and depressing hunting scene?
Then I thought--this movie was filmed in Canada (mostly), it cost two million to produce and barely broke half a million at the box office. So perhaps it was (unintentionally) born to be a tax write off for investors?
Better luck next time.
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