Reviewed by Sean McNulty
Not
quite sure where to start with this one. It's a story of six
robbers who just robbed a bank and are taking refuge in a
supposedly abandoned house. As the title suggests, this movie
focuses on the human psyche and the dark, and rather illogical
decisions many of us make. The scenery and such is not the best,
but this is beside the point, and in no way hinders the movie.
There is not a lot of character development, as very little is
needed. We know their names, and we know they just robbed a
bank. This is enough for the movie to do what it needs to do.
The camera work throughout this movie is fitting, and sets the
suspenseful mood required for full enjoyment of this short
little tale. It starts with an unexplainable noise within the
house. It was supposed to be abandoned, but apparently somebody
else is in there with them. They break up, and explore the
house. It is at this point that one of them dies, gets shot. Of
course, this leads to a mix of emotions from the robbers, and
more splitting up, and then more death. I'm not going to
summarize the whole movie, but it is after this that the killer
is revealed and the purpose of the title comes into effect. One
of their own, Thomas, is the one who was killing them. He wanted
the money all for himself, that being his motive. This is of
course a predictable outcome, but it was interesting to try and
guess who the killer was. Being six of them, it was not very
easy to know exactly which one was knocking everybody off, and
thus it was interesting taking a guess but then having said
person die. Anyways, if you look at this movie in a nut shell,
it seems like a simple, rather cliché movie. But that's not
giving it enough credit. This movie has a few specific details
that make it all the more interesting. The noise they hear at
the beginning is a cat. This didn't hit me until the movie
ended. When Teddy dies, a cat walks past his corpse. When I saw
this, it meant nothing to me, and was actually a bit humorous.
The reason being is that the killer was not yet identified, and
I was still trying to figure out who it was. You see, when they
first hear the noise, every character is together, and they all
hear it. The cat explains that, and perhaps I'm giving it a bit
too much credit, but that simple little cat really helped this
movie out. The same goes for the neat trick of Thomas shooting
through the floor to kill Teddy. When Michael sees the bullet
holes and the pieces of floor, it's rather satisfying, in a way.
There are no loose ends at all, and that's great.
Moving on, the voice acting was decent. It worked, though it was
a bit... seemingly improvised at times and a little bit...
immature. What I mean is, specifically, the line, "Who would do
something like this, SERIOUSLY?" It seemed out of place, as well
as the simple "OK" and what not, but everything else was fine.
It's really not that big of a deal.
The score for the movie was chosen wisely, and fit it very well.
It created the perfect environment for the actions that take
place within the house, as well as conveying the emotions and
actions of the characters.
Overall, the best part of this film is the focal point, that
being the mind of Thomas. I've always enjoyed movies that have
to do with the choices people make and why they make those
choices, in other words, psychology. It's always interesting,
and this movie does not disappoint. It's hard to explain,
really. The dark premise of the decision Thomas makes, to kill
his friends in order to obtain all the money and not have to
share it, is obviously illogical, but he's blinded by greed.
It's amazing what a little bit of greed can do to a man: make
him kill, make him betray and practically drive him insane. The
conversation between Thomas and Reggie is a very interesting
part of this movie as well, and very important. It shows that
even in his greed and black state of mind, he maintains his
intelligence. He is able to actually convince Reggie, who knows
he killed everybody, into not killing him. It's weird, really.
The fact is, Thomas believe he is in control, and technically he
is. I'm starting to ramble and make no sense.
This movie is good. Thomas is an interesting and enjoyable
villain, from mystery to demise, and it is captivating to watch
the six of these characters via the omniscient presence granted
to you through film. It's amazing that you can get so much from
such a short film that could have been thrown together at
random, but all in all, it worked. This dark tale of the minds
of humans and the decisions we unwittingly make is engaging and
makes this film the enjoyable watch that it is.
7.5/10
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