"The Loft" is Erik van Looy's first film as a director since 2008. This film may stay his most known work for many years to come as this is already the third version of it. Van Looy directed the Belgian original in 2008 and there was even a Dutch version not much later with another director though. It would certainly very interesting to compare these movies and look for similarities and differences. A third remake is not common at all. He has worked on several Belgian movies and the most famous actor he directed so far is probably Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke. The story is fairly simple initially. Five males rent a loft, which they use to cheat on their wives. One day, a dead woman is found in the apartment and it has to be one of them who killed her as nobody has a key except the five and there are no traces of a breaking and entering.
Quite a simple premise and I think if they had kept it more simple towards the end, it could have been a really great film. In my opinion, it was just one final twist too many at the end. It wasn't so bad that it would destroy the entire film. The big advantage for me here was that I was familiar with the whole quintet. I knew all of them at least a bit from the name or from previous projects and Eric Stonestreet I even knew very well being an avid "Modern Family" viewer. A bit strange to see him as such an extremely heterosexual character. Apart from him, I watched some "Prison Break", "Rust and Bone", "Lord of the Rings" and "30 Rock" in the past, which helped me associate with the other actors. Urban I was not too familiar with, but I saw him in "RED" not too long ago and managed to make a connection here as well. The only other I knew in here was Rhona Mitra, not a particularly versatile actress in my opinion, but she has great screen presence in pretty much everything she is in, even if she doesn't talk much.
Except the criticism about the ending (it felt like a series of "Pretty Little Liars" packed into half an hour, framing, suicide, murder, pills...) , I am mostly fine with the script. I think they could have made it more efficient by keeping the film at 80 minutes and having the audience guess until the final sequence who killed the girl and made it very clear with one of them being the killer, maybe even letting him get away at the end. Unfortunately they did not. However, there are some nice details in the movie that I enjoyed. For example, due to the central characters' involvement with several blondes it is initially not safe to say who is the actual victim. I liked that. Guessing is always good. What I did not entirely understand was why most of the other men would rent the loft if it was almost exclusively only one of them who would use it to cheat on his wife. The whole surveillance plot could have been a bit more clever too. As I said earlier, it was almost too much drama packed into 20 minutes and it would have been too much for 2 hours, everything that happened in the end.
All in all, I would slightly recommend this movie. Even if it is not entirely convincing, it certainly has its strengths and you could give it a chance, especially if you like thrillers revolving around murder.
Quite a simple premise and I think if they had kept it more simple towards the end, it could have been a really great film. In my opinion, it was just one final twist too many at the end. It wasn't so bad that it would destroy the entire film. The big advantage for me here was that I was familiar with the whole quintet. I knew all of them at least a bit from the name or from previous projects and Eric Stonestreet I even knew very well being an avid "Modern Family" viewer. A bit strange to see him as such an extremely heterosexual character. Apart from him, I watched some "Prison Break", "Rust and Bone", "Lord of the Rings" and "30 Rock" in the past, which helped me associate with the other actors. Urban I was not too familiar with, but I saw him in "RED" not too long ago and managed to make a connection here as well. The only other I knew in here was Rhona Mitra, not a particularly versatile actress in my opinion, but she has great screen presence in pretty much everything she is in, even if she doesn't talk much.
Except the criticism about the ending (it felt like a series of "Pretty Little Liars" packed into half an hour, framing, suicide, murder, pills...) , I am mostly fine with the script. I think they could have made it more efficient by keeping the film at 80 minutes and having the audience guess until the final sequence who killed the girl and made it very clear with one of them being the killer, maybe even letting him get away at the end. Unfortunately they did not. However, there are some nice details in the movie that I enjoyed. For example, due to the central characters' involvement with several blondes it is initially not safe to say who is the actual victim. I liked that. Guessing is always good. What I did not entirely understand was why most of the other men would rent the loft if it was almost exclusively only one of them who would use it to cheat on his wife. The whole surveillance plot could have been a bit more clever too. As I said earlier, it was almost too much drama packed into 20 minutes and it would have been too much for 2 hours, everything that happened in the end.
All in all, I would slightly recommend this movie. Even if it is not entirely convincing, it certainly has its strengths and you could give it a chance, especially if you like thrillers revolving around murder.