So like 99% of the people who watched this movie, I was invested in checking out Bryan Cranston's performance. I'm a huge BB fanboy and the trailer for this film seemed decent enough, but I feel like Cranston must have not gotten a full copy of the script (or a voice coach) before accepting this role. The writing is just absolutely atrocious. 2-dimensional characters, tons of plot holes, and the mother has NUMEROUS chances to escape her captor. At one point she's even standing behind him while he's sitting in a chair. It was more than plausible for her to pick up any of the several blunt objects in the room and try to knock him out.
Every character is so painfully dumb, CinemaSins would have an absolute field day with those details alone. A vicious Russian mobster kidnaps a mother & daughter, threatening to murder them both if they try to escape, but then inexplicably has a change of heart when attempting to steal a meager $2000 from her. I mean literally out of nowhere he suddenly forms a conscience for God only knows why. If that wasn't bad enough, he then spares the life of a dirty cop who knows what he looks like and whose wife he just murdered in cold blood. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
But here's the cherry on top: the mother, whose SOLE MOTIVATION throughout the entire movie is to protect her daughter from a murderous sociopath, figures it's no big deal if she just helps herself to stealing $50,000 from the Russian mafia. And does she immediately pack up their essentials and skip town like a bat out of Hell for making such a reckless move. NO. Instead, she just stays home. Yes, seriously. She stays home! She apparently stays there for so long that it leaves enough time for both the mobster and the dirty cop to arrive there and try to deal out their vengeance. And by the time they get there (which at the very least is hours later), she has barely even started packing. What in the actual Hell?
The acting was decent enough, but it seems like as the film progressed actors were slowly realizing that the story was just too ridiculous to take seriously. Like they were just trying to get through their lines and get this crapfest over with. It's worth watching if you want to learn how a decent cast, directing, and cinematography is already doomed from the start without a decent script. Otherwise it's a hard pass.
Every character is so painfully dumb, CinemaSins would have an absolute field day with those details alone. A vicious Russian mobster kidnaps a mother & daughter, threatening to murder them both if they try to escape, but then inexplicably has a change of heart when attempting to steal a meager $2000 from her. I mean literally out of nowhere he suddenly forms a conscience for God only knows why. If that wasn't bad enough, he then spares the life of a dirty cop who knows what he looks like and whose wife he just murdered in cold blood. Yeah, that totally makes sense.
But here's the cherry on top: the mother, whose SOLE MOTIVATION throughout the entire movie is to protect her daughter from a murderous sociopath, figures it's no big deal if she just helps herself to stealing $50,000 from the Russian mafia. And does she immediately pack up their essentials and skip town like a bat out of Hell for making such a reckless move. NO. Instead, she just stays home. Yes, seriously. She stays home! She apparently stays there for so long that it leaves enough time for both the mobster and the dirty cop to arrive there and try to deal out their vengeance. And by the time they get there (which at the very least is hours later), she has barely even started packing. What in the actual Hell?
The acting was decent enough, but it seems like as the film progressed actors were slowly realizing that the story was just too ridiculous to take seriously. Like they were just trying to get through their lines and get this crapfest over with. It's worth watching if you want to learn how a decent cast, directing, and cinematography is already doomed from the start without a decent script. Otherwise it's a hard pass.