Sam, a man so deep in depression he opens his day with a one player version of Russian Roulette, is investigating the building collapse which killed his wife and daughter.
After a bad reaction to some vaccinations, Noah falls into a coma. "Waking" he meets fallen angel, Yusef, who gives him a choice; die in the coma, or assist the angel by killing for him, that Yusef can get what he came for... 5 Souls.
Flipping backwards and forwards between the separate stories of Sam and Noah, as though 2 entirely different scripts have been shuffled together, never really having the time to develop either. The result is confusing, annoying, and disappointing.
Our "main" story, I suppose, is Noah's encounter with Yusef, and later with his angelic counterpart Jessica, as they respectively try to convince him to claim the 5 Souls, and be true to himself even if the cost is his own life.
Sadly, partially due to the back-and-forth between the two stories, none of the characters is particularly well defined, and it feels a little cartoonish, as though Yusef and Jessica, would serve the movie as well if they were shrunk down to miniature and perched on Noah's shoulders.
Around the 50 minute mark, things do start to get pick up, as Noah's kills get harder for a number of reasons, and a little more is revealed about the ethereal side of things; but frankly, 2/3rds of the way through a movie is a little late for it to get interesting... Especially as two stories are running and only one of them picks up!
On the Sam front, his story is quite dull, befriending a female cop to help with his investigation, he investigates the company behind the building that collapsed, to the extent of harassing the CEO. The big 3rd act reveal in this story ties it loosely into Noah's, with a minor 'twist' that starts to tie the stories together. Before the whole thing builds to a climax that isn't as clever as it thinks it is
On the plus side, the movie looks good, at times great, and is wonderfully lit, paining the right atmosphere for every scene, and giving the two stories their own look. That said, a little visual consistency may have left it feeling less disjointed, and the acting is mostly good, though there are times when a couple of actors start to border on melodrama.
If the whole movie had been as good as the last act, it would be worth a watch, not a full on 'recommended', but worth checking out of you catch it on. As it stands though, the last 25 minutes cannot make up for an otherwise confused, un-engaging, movie.
Disclaimer:
If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've been using "Bought from Poundland" as a tag since at least 2011.
At the end of October 2013 I decided that all of my 2014 movies would be purchased from Poundland, and began buying up horror movies, to ensure I would have enough come October 2014.
In March 2014 I took a part time job at Poundland.
In accordance with the companies social media policy, in September 2014 I contacted Poundland's social media team to check that I would be okay to carry on with my plan to use the "bought from Poundland" tag.
I have been given the go-ahead on condition that I make the following clear:
All the reviews on this blog are entirely the opinion of Will Tingle, the reviews are not endorsed by Poundland in any way and (as should be obvious from some of the more scathing ones) are certainly not reviews I have been paid to write.
In short: The views expressed in this blog are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Poundland or it's owners, shareholders, or management.
Hmmm, doesn't sound great, but one of those ones if I see it's on tv I'll sit down and watch. The idea sounds ok, just a pity there wasn't a bit more to it. xx
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