Thriller & Mystery > H Thriller & Mystery > U

A bit grisly

Advantages: You are in suspense, for a while at least
Disadvantages: grisly! hard to watch some of the scenes because of this

...Will they all survive? Untraceable has a Saw feel to it, with the torture and misery, but this film takes it to a new level with acts of cruelty I have never encountered in a film before. It is very bleak with a lot of ‘long away now’ moments for me. I found it incredibly hard to watch some of the scene yet can applaud Hanks and the rest of the cast for the acting ability. Overall, this film is a bit (to say the least) sick and grisly and is not ...

theshinyone 24.07.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Untraceable (DVD)

Easy to Track Down

Advantages: A likable lead and solid production.
Disadvantages: It's nothing new.

FBI Agent Jennifer Marsh and her team are used to dealing with the worst of humanity in the cyber-crimes division. But then a new type of website appears. It offers the viewers the chance to participate in a murder. All they have to do is log onto the site where they will see someone being tortured and killed. The more people that log on, the quicker the victim dies. But of course the public is curious and many of them just want to see what all the ...
...website seems untraceable, but as Agent Marsh gets closer to the killer, he turns his attention to her and those around her, making the vendetta personal. "Fracture" director Greogry Hoblit makes another capable stab at the thriller genre with this solid slice of movie-making. However, his background in directing for television shows in his unwillingness to innovate. The movie may be about new technology being bent to people's darkest desires, but ...

afy9mab 10.03.2008 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Untraceable (DVD)

Action-packed with some witty dialogue but still flawed somehow

Advantages: Quite thrilling when it gathers pace, seemed an authentic depiction of London, some humour
Disadvantages: Something about Downey Jnrs depiction of Holmes didnt work somehow, not for all ages/the squeamish

...Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson start out by catching a serial killer who dabbles in the the supernatural, an evil man called Lord Blackwood who is sentenced to death, indeed Watson confirms he's dead after he's hung. Things take a distinctly sinister turn, however, when they discover than Blackwood has apparently risen from the dead and Holmes recalls what he told him before he was hung, which indicated that more ...
...actor (Robert Downey Jnr.) played Sherlock Holmes, while an English actor (Jude Law), played his right hand man, Dr. Watson. Now of course I knew that before I went to see the movie, infact I quite like Robert Downey Jnr. as an actor and I have enjoyed some of his other movies and the fact that he plays the main character was one of the main reasons I wanted to see it in the cinema but there was something about him playing this role that I just didn't ...

IzzyS 27.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sherlock Holmes

What goes around comes around..

Advantages: Enigmatic
Disadvantages: Perhaps too long

...I wouldn’t say this was in that impact category but certainly a quality piece of film. The drama begins with the return of thirty-something award winning war photographer Paul Harris (Mathew McFadden) to the small rural town of Steimer where he grew up, his first visit for 17 years. The night bag over the shoulder arrival is for dad’s funeral, mum long returned to the Earth, Paul’s relationship with big brother Andrew (Colin May) still not good after ...
...As per normal in these movies Paul has awakened ghosts from his and others past on his return, none more so than a long lost relationship with Penny (Miranda Otto), the reason, we discover later, he skipped town. Deciding to stick around and sort out the family estate, his brother begrudging Paul’s promised third of the Will & Testament, the rest going to an unnamed charity, things take an unexpected turn in his closed world with the arrival of a ...

thedevilinme 22.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of In My Father's Den (DVD)

About as fun as being stuck in the Channel Tunel

Advantages: Acting
Disadvantages: Yawnnnnnnn

The dust-cover proudly states that this is the best film of the new millennium! They obviously haven’t seen Brazilian Girls Go Wild In Cancun then. I took both films up on their boasts and I can confirm there was only one winner—and I didn’t need the subtitles. Talk about over rated. I had heard good things about Hidden; it had won the Palm De Or` in Cannes no less. But it’s French and so that means its going to be very talky and actor centered, ...
...the limited and predictable script. For a movie pushed as a mysterious thriller the only mystery here is how it won anything, dribbling out to a very disappointing finish. One broadsheet even voted this film of the decade?? The movie opens with a single static shot of the front of one of those comfy urban secluded houses in a nice middle class Paris superb. From across the street we observe the house panacea and everyday movements in the street ...

thedevilinme 20.12.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Hidden (DVD)