TeenzTen
An action-packed slog
Ketrivie
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
jimbo-53-186511
In a sunken castle, 5 people awaken with little to no memory of how they got there. They quickly learn that they are being tested and find that they must band together to try to figure out how to escape. But who is responsible for their imprisonment and why have these 5 specific people being chosen?The Gauntlet or Game Of Assassins as it is otherwise known is very similar in feel to Cube (another film where a group of strangers are locked in together and must work together and solve puzzles to escape). Predictably this results in a film that isn't particularly fresh or original...Having said that, in this film it really doesn't matter too much as the camera is always busy and the film rarely sits still - there is just about enough exposition and character development to get an understanding of what is going on, but it's never overdone here and although this film is flawed it is never dull.One complaint I did have with this film was the dark and dingy look of the film; sure it's necessary to an extent due to where they are located, but at times it was impossible to see what was going on which in some ways removed some of the tension from proceedings. The editing and choreography of some of the fight sequences was also poor and amateurish which resulted in a lot of these fight sequences being a bit laughable.The cast are all OK, but no-one really makes much of an impression truth be told and they do all feel like clichés of characters that I've seen before.I don't want to be too harsh on this film as it is, to be fair, moderately entertaining and at only 80 minutes long it gets the job done without any needless filler, crass subplots or soppy romances. However, it's never as good as the films that it has borrowed from which is problematic and ultimately renders it as a second-rate variation.
Turambar-3
I'm sure there are some people who will be convinced this movie contains some sort of hidden truths, but I'm not. There's almost no plot, not much dialogue and we learn very little about the characters - worse, we don't care about any of them anyway. What little plot there is, as it turns out, ends up with several big holes in it. The ending takes place in the last 5 minutes, because the writer obviously just ran out of ideas (or paper). It's trudge, trudge, trudge for 75 minutes, then a disappointing ending so devoid of anything useful that the viewer just ends up with nothing. If someone had suggested to me that this movie might end this way, I'd think he was kidding.This movie was showing on HBO one Sunday against all of the infomercials, and I got curious. I thought it might be a fun little action flick, but an old Jackie Chan movie would have been a hundred times more entertaining.
didgee7
Just finished watching this movie and I am a bit shocked as to how bad it was after expecting a good one given the ratings and the trailer. I am sorry I cant waste my time to write a proper review on this one ..In short very bad acting with no credible figures,predictable story, (very predictable)the set up is not bad so the idea despite far from original could have gone further if they choose IMHO better actors and overall almost everyone who made this movie surely had to be a beginner at film making.. This movie could have been very good if it was watched 20 years ago.Its ridiculous at 7 starts at current rating.Fair rating is at 5 or 6 at the most.(And you will not see that costume either thats on the poster.In fact that poster has nothing to do with this movie~)
movieseed
Saw this in the festival circuit last year when it was titled 'The Gauntlet.' It's a little bit of Saw and a little bit of DaVinci Code.Five strangers wake up in what seems to be a labyrinthine or underground castle with no memory of how they got there. Their relationships to one another are unknown, and the loyalties they form for survival are tenuous at best. Each level of this dungeon proves a grueling challenge where the price to move forward is often another person's life. Along the way, a sense of each person's past and a glimmer of their true character peeks through. In fact this is the more enjoyable aspect of the feature. I respected the internal life of these characters and learning who they were. Meanwhile, blood, much blood, much death. Bai Ling (The Beautiful Country, The Crow) is fantastic as a disturbed and merciless survivalist. Though the least of the actors that needs to prove themselves on an ostensibly low-budget genre flick, Bai Ling goes for broke, covered in blood for basically the entire film. Another treat was the casting of Dustin Nguyen (The Rebel) whose performance is one of subtlety and dignity. The Gauntlet is what it is. It goes for broke and I had fun while it did.