NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Oslo Jargo (Bartok Kinski) Okay, so start up with a good setup and premise, and instead of working it slowly, the film crams everything down our throat so that it doesn't make much sense at all. Add to it some terrible acting (Selma Blair, Giovanni Ribisi as a cop?, Kevin Pollak, Jason Lee), some terrible editing and incredulous scenes, and by the end, it is so utterly stupid that it drops two grades.What could have been an intriguing Neo-noir thriller tries too hard to "surprise" us with wrong turns and detours. Instead, it becomes below-standard rubbish.Recommended: Experiment in Terror (1962) U Turn (1997) Blood Simple (1984) Who'll Stop The Rain (1978) Red Rock West (1993)

eloyal9756 It seems that a lot of users like to bash a movie and talk about how predictable a mystery is, just to show everyone else how smart they are. Talk about what's wrong with the direction even though they don't really know a thing about directing. This is a smart movie with good actors. Some think the villains made illogical and unreasonable choices. Well, most criminals aren't as smart as they think they are and do illogical things when everything starts to unravel. Most criminals aren't smart and don't keep a cool head under pressure. That's why they get caught!This is perceived as a movie about an agoraphobic and everyone is incredulous when she leaves her apartment in the climax. Abigail's doctor has told her she's agoraphobic, but he's in on the con and doesn't want her to have any contact with anyone but him. Remember that she chose to disappear for a reason. She had the privacy she wanted so she had no reason to leave her apartment - and her life was purposefully controlled. People choose fight or flight when threatened. When Abigail comes under extreme threat, she chooses both flight (nowhere to run except OUT of her apartment) and fight (for her fortune without which she could not exist).The doctor's choice of henchmen seems flawed, but what kind of people are you going to get for something like this? First person I would ask would be an ex-con, which by definition is a loser. Greed can fuzzy your thinking. The closer they got to the money, the less logical they became. They kept thinking "just one more person out of the way and we'll have enough money to run where no one can find us".Another user spoke of how dumb the police were. They had already zeroed in on Ray owning both apartments. One user said it was not believable that Abigail was leaving without an identity. She had already transferred her money somewhere. She could by her own plane and pilot. She knew how to disappear - she had done it before.I really liked the acting by Kevin Pollack and Jason Lee. Ribisi always brings a sense of intelligence and also naiveté to his characters. His partner's character could have added humor or at least something with better lines and actor - Samm Levine would have been great as the partner rather than the bank manager.

robert-temple-1 I am one of those people who will buy a DVD if Selma Blair is in it, because she intrigues me. Even though she really comes from Michigan and is not from the East Coast at all, she nevertheless manages convincingly to come across as an East Coast preppie. I am not sure how she does that, especially as she did not attend university where she could have honed her skills at preppie-ness. A film preppie of an earlier generation is Stockard Channing, and in her case she was from the East Coast and attended Radcliffe, where she even achieved summa cum laude. So she is a real 'natural'. Perhaps the most famous preppie-on-film was the character Annie Hall, played by Diane Keaton in Woody Allen's ANNIE HALL (1977), but Keaton is a California gal, which is ever further west than Michigan, or so they say (is it all in the mind?). Yet another convincing film preppie when she wants to be is Michael Michele, at least as she appeared in the excellent TV series CENTRAL PARK WEST (1995), and she comes from Evansville, Indiana. So how do they do it, these hicks from the sticks (by which I mean girls who come from faraway and obscure places like California, Michigan, and Indiana)? How do they 'prep'? In fact, what is a preppie anyway? I used to wonder that very thing when I knew a lot of them long ago, in the days when they all wore identical tartan wraparound skirts held with gigantic safety pins and white socks, and earnestly pressed their clipboards to their breasts as they walked between classes at university. Preppies are above all a tribe, and to defy the tribal dress code is to invite ostracism. But never mind, let's get back to the film. (Or did we never even start on the film?) So there we were, Selma Blair is being a preppie again. This time she is a neurotic rich-girl recluse who is hiding out in style in a luxurious penthouse apartment overlooking Columbus Circle in New York City. She has agoraphobia and cannot go out. Then she becomes targeted by unscrupulous folk who, surprise surprise, do not love her for herself alone but who want her money. Who ever heard of such a thing in NYC? They work on her vulnerabilities and are incredibly clever and devious in their plan to steal all her money. It is hair-raising stuff. Written and directed by George Gallo, this film could really have clicked, but it falls short of being a convincingly tense mystery thriller in the latter part of the film. Selma Blair is entirely convincing as the girl, and was the perfect choice for the part. But the script really needed more work and thought. A miss, not a hit, but still worth seeing.

Frederick Smith Bravo to Kevin Pollack, who also co-wrote this refreshing mystery in the style of the Raymond Chandler stories of old. Selma Blair and Giovanni Ribisi (in my opinion one of the most underexposed and capable actors of recent years, re: The Other Sister, Boiler Room, Avatar, etc.) give plausible and perfectly tuned performances in this film. The supporting cast is exceptional. Jason Lee provides the audience with a new perspective on his already estimable talents, not falling back upon his comedic style. Pollack and Bridges, two actors whose abilities are well known, provide us with exceptional supporting characters, as do Jason Antoon and Amy Smart. Although the initial twenty minutes of the film are a bit slow, the action quickly picks up and the conclusion contains a refreshing twist. Cinematography and photography are excellent, and the film has a cohesive feel that provides the illusion of the first time, which is after all the point of acting. Rated PG-13 for language and violence, hats off to the director and writers for not falling into the "gratuitous sex scenes that so often accompany films of this nature. Collectible? Depends on your particular bent, but wouldn't rule it out. Watch it and decide for yourself.