"The Price We Pay" is one of those movies that never gives you a way in. You watch it like it's a muted conversation happening from afar where you can't really hear what the people are saying. You see action, you see people occasionally getting animated, but you don't really know what it's about, and you don't really care. The people involved in the "conversation" (or movie) don't seem interesting and the way they behave is strange in an obnoxious and unprepossessing way.
The plot: Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, and some other guy rob a place and take a woman hostage, after shooting the owner of the place dead. They hole up in a barn, where they find the owners have a disturbing secret.
The movie does a bunch of things wrong right away. It begins with a sex worker getting dumped at a gas station and apparently abducted. The movie surely could have found a way to make you care about the plight of the poor woman, but it just doesn't. Everything about it is oddly distancing. And what is this scene even doing in the movie? I know, it's supposed to be foreshadowing and build suspense and all that. But then why is it set in a gas station, when the crux of the movie is set in a farmhouse? We're supposed to believe that the evil farmers also abducted that girl. We don't.
More annoying than that, though, is the behaviour of the abducted girl. She is almost killed in the robbery at the beginning of the movie, and she sees a man die right in front of her. Then, his killers take her hostage. Would you believe that she not only does not appear traumatised at all, she also doesn't even appear afraid? You would believe that? Yeah, me too. It's just so lame, though. Is this that "badass" garbage every movie's had for so long now, you know, the girl power crap? All it does is diminish the character, making her lame, unbelievable and unforgettable, and harms the movie itself. As the only non-criminal character, she should be the one the audience empathises with. To do that, she has to appear to feel how we feel. She doesn't.
It sucks, because the movie was directed by Ryûhei Kitamura, the guy who made the fantastic "Midnight Meat Train" adaptation. It also features Australian actor Vernon Wells, who played the bad guy Bennett in "Commando". He pops up in the strangest places. Looking at his IMDB page, he seems to be averaging a dozen or so roles every year. Is he the busiest actor no one's ever heard of?
Vernon Wells is probably never a bad choice for a villain, but Emile Hirsch was definitely miscast here. He was perfect in "Alpha Dog" as the rich kid who thinks he's a gangster and lets his sycophantic friends' praise go to his head. He's believable as a tough-guy wannabe, because he's never generally menacing. Here, he tries to be that, but to no avail.
Stephen Dorff is suitably craggy as a hard-bitten ex-army medic who has turned to thievery. Other than that, none of the actors make an impression, especially the girl, whose opportunity to create a character we cared about was stolen from her based on the limitations of the screenplay outlined above.
I was going to say that the violence sucks, but there was one cool scene, where a guy's head explodes after being pulverised by a flying canister. There's also a nifty scene where a person (couldn't tell if male or female) is torn apart by barb wire, so there's two cool kills in it.
And then it's over, thank god.
The plot: Emile Hirsch, Stephen Dorff, and some other guy rob a place and take a woman hostage, after shooting the owner of the place dead. They hole up in a barn, where they find the owners have a disturbing secret.
The movie does a bunch of things wrong right away. It begins with a sex worker getting dumped at a gas station and apparently abducted. The movie surely could have found a way to make you care about the plight of the poor woman, but it just doesn't. Everything about it is oddly distancing. And what is this scene even doing in the movie? I know, it's supposed to be foreshadowing and build suspense and all that. But then why is it set in a gas station, when the crux of the movie is set in a farmhouse? We're supposed to believe that the evil farmers also abducted that girl. We don't.
More annoying than that, though, is the behaviour of the abducted girl. She is almost killed in the robbery at the beginning of the movie, and she sees a man die right in front of her. Then, his killers take her hostage. Would you believe that she not only does not appear traumatised at all, she also doesn't even appear afraid? You would believe that? Yeah, me too. It's just so lame, though. Is this that "badass" garbage every movie's had for so long now, you know, the girl power crap? All it does is diminish the character, making her lame, unbelievable and unforgettable, and harms the movie itself. As the only non-criminal character, she should be the one the audience empathises with. To do that, she has to appear to feel how we feel. She doesn't.
It sucks, because the movie was directed by Ryûhei Kitamura, the guy who made the fantastic "Midnight Meat Train" adaptation. It also features Australian actor Vernon Wells, who played the bad guy Bennett in "Commando". He pops up in the strangest places. Looking at his IMDB page, he seems to be averaging a dozen or so roles every year. Is he the busiest actor no one's ever heard of?
Vernon Wells is probably never a bad choice for a villain, but Emile Hirsch was definitely miscast here. He was perfect in "Alpha Dog" as the rich kid who thinks he's a gangster and lets his sycophantic friends' praise go to his head. He's believable as a tough-guy wannabe, because he's never generally menacing. Here, he tries to be that, but to no avail.
Stephen Dorff is suitably craggy as a hard-bitten ex-army medic who has turned to thievery. Other than that, none of the actors make an impression, especially the girl, whose opportunity to create a character we cared about was stolen from her based on the limitations of the screenplay outlined above.
I was going to say that the violence sucks, but there was one cool scene, where a guy's head explodes after being pulverised by a flying canister. There's also a nifty scene where a person (couldn't tell if male or female) is torn apart by barb wire, so there's two cool kills in it.
And then it's over, thank god.