Supelice
Dreadfully Boring
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Ortiz
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Irie212
The setting is high-rise with a huge law firm on an upper floor. A name partner (Christian Clemenson, fine as always) has two big clients overwhelming his staff as the movie opens: Denning Pharmaceutical, fighting a crippling lawsuit; and Mrs. Gambizzi, a Mafia wife turned snitch. The action takes place in the course of about 24 hours. After the office closes, while Mrs. Gambizzi is quietly meeting with Mr. Name Partner, an assassin heads into the high-rise building with both death and destruction in mind. Simply called The Killer, he is played with mesmerizing menace by JJ Feild- - a British actor whose performance here ranks (almost) with James Fox as the Jackal and Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in terms of bone-chilling bad guys.The Killer is not happy to discover that the office isn't quite as empty as he'd been lead to believe. As he coolly disables the elevator and outside access, he has to execute several people. As he wheels one body off in a handy ergonomic chair, he phones someone and speaks in ambiguously specific terms about the head count: "Three, plus the one we talked about." The audience is not really left to wonder which of the four corpses is "the one," because it's easy to assume that Mrs. Gambizzi was the target of a mob vendetta.But was she the target? In what I think is a very clever twist, that question raises the film well above the gangster level. The Killer has an opponent, a young paralegal who had been fired that very day but observed a curious briefcase-hand-off in the lobby, and followed the suspicious recipient back up to the law offices. Played as a quick-thinking, quick-moving modern-day paladin by Max Minghella, he is the solid center of this tense and tightly constructed thriller, which has more than a few moments when BAM! an edit jolts you in your seat, which the music has kept you at the edge of. Director Joe Johnston and the writers (Adam Mason and Simon Boyes) leave enough unsaid to allow the audience to begin to wonder if the relentless, cold-blooded Killer really was sent by the Mafia, or was it the other client, Big Pharma? And when that knife-edge question dawns on you, the tension is suddenly, thrillingly doubled because you're faced with this question: which of those two entities is more powerful and dangerous?
c-conley90
A pretty good thriller, unfortunately let down by a lame finale/ending. A hit-man is killing people working late at a massive law firm and it's up to a recently fired worker played by Max Minghella to stop him. And uncover a secret conspiracy involving a omnipresent pharmaceutical company?I know, what the hell? A drug company is bigger than the government according to the ending of this movie, bigger than the police. It's hilarious. Most of the movie was a normal thriller involving hit-man JJ Felid doing his best Christopher Walken impersonation, prowling around the office building murdering coworkers of Minghella. I can see why this movie was shuffled from release in 2012, not just that the movie is 75 minutes long, but the ending is complete nonsense and leaves me going what? And it made me think, is there a whole reel of this movie sitting somewhere that got cut out by Universal that had the complete resolution of this thing on it. Poor Minghella who was actually a notable actor from things like Social Network, The Ides of March, The Internship, Syrianna, Art School Confidential, Horns had to star in this. And the big claim to fame on the DVD box was that Jason Blum produced it, which is true, but I don't think he's too proud of it, considering the DVD had zero special features and was just slapped on there. Oh and that one girl who plays Max's girlfriend might be familiar to people who remember her from Fifty Shades of Grey playing Dakota Johnson's friend. Joe Johnston makes a movie that actually succeeds in being worse than Jurassic Park III, so well there's that. It's not awful, awful, but it's pretty one note, and the ending makes me go huh. I can't state that enough.
Argemaluco
I thought that, after the successful Captain America: The First Avenger, director Joe Johnston would exclusively dedicate himself to make high-profile films. But no; his following film ended up being a modest straight-to-DVD thriller... something which isn't bad. The problem comes from the fact that the film is mediocre. Not Safe for Work counted with the appropriate ingredients for a modern thriller: an intelligent main character with a fair motivation; sinister corporative villains willing to do anything to preserve their earnings; and the obligatory use of technology to solve (or create) problems and increment the tension. Unfortunately, Not Safe for Work feels insipid, with a fluid and accessible structure, but emotionally empty. While I was watching this movie, I was trying to find the missing element. The screenplay might not offer big displays of ingenuity or creativity, but it's efficient and concise, avoiding any filler and taking us from one event to the other without obfuscating us or relying on excessive coincidences. I think the guilty one is Johnston, an usually skillful and sure director who, in this case, didn't bring enough energy to make the movie come to life. And worsening the situation, the performances from Max Minghella, Christian Clemenson and Eloise Mumford are as apathetic and lacking of personality as the direction. In conclusion, Not Safe for Work is a mediocre, but moderately entertaining thriller which deserves a slight recommendation. But in the context of Johnston's career, it feels like an unexplainable anomaly, even if he was just trying to "cleanse the palate" of special effects and big budgets (for the case, he had already done something similar with the brilliant drama October Sky). I just hope that Johnston hasn't lost his ability to tell stories with much more enthusiasm and personality than in Not Safe for Work.
Lareina Duffy
This is a nail biting action thriller. There were solid performances from all of the cast members..especially the villain, JJ Field. Max Minghella was really great too. I really hope to see more from them in the future. Im sick of seeing mediocre acting from the likes of Zac Efron, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Godzilla), and Shia Leboeuf in these big budget mindless movies. Big budget is great, but if the lead cant act, then the movie has no soul, IMO. Not Safe For Work is fast paced and really held my interest. The dialogue is sharp. I found this movie to be a refreshing change from so many movies that Hollywood has been cranking out lately. No fight scenes that drag on too long. The protagonist doest do anything that makes you think "ok, that beaks the laws of physics". None of the shaky hand held camera business so many thriller movies fall back on now days (thx Blair Witch project). I also love that this movie didn't rely on a cynical screenplay, swearing, nudity, or any shock value. Its just a well written, well executed, and well directed movie. Why cant more movies be like this?
