Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

One of those films, where the least said about the plot the better, so in an attempt to refrain from giving any spoilers I boil it down to one sentence. Julian (Mike Vogel) attempts to stop his best friend Terry (Danny Pino) from any making any rash choices after he follows his fiancée June (Brittany Murphy) rent a room at the River View hotel.Given the low IMDb ratings I didn't really expect much from this below-the-radar thriller. The movie itself is heavily influenced by two great directors. One of them is Alfred Hitchcock. The attempt at replicating the style of 50s and 60s thrillers is visibly apparent not only in the cinematographic style ripe with noir overhead shots, neons, stylisations and a need to push the suspense and tension ahead of action and cheap thrills. The whole movie itself if an old-fashioned hotel with a outdated bell-boy playing a key part in the build-up and story. Overflowing with a retro feel it becomes a stylish homage aimed at those who miss the good old days.On the other hand you can see the strong impact that Christopher Nolan has in updating the thriller genre and fully using the superior technical capabilities of modern film art to increase the mystery, growing tension and keep tabs on the plot. The whole story is expertly told in a non-linear fashion, where scenes from the past and present intermingle forcing you to logically put the pieces together (in a well-done mix-up of Innaritu storytelling and "Memento" type editing). Directed with swagger debutant Alex Merkin shows a lot of confidence and immense promise with the use of tools at his disposal.That said the movie does seem a tad overlong and given this was based on Merkin's short film it seems he essentially should have met somewhere in between at around 60-70 minutes. The movie tends to drag on incredibly as the script is pulled out in order to somehow reach a proper running time. The suspension drastically drops, although manages to get back on track with the final resolute bang of an ending. Basically a poster movie for the need to be able to be a bit shorter than the standard 90-120 minutes of the Hollywood 'full length feature'.Honestly the script itself is in the most part wildly predictable, as the movie is mostly pushed ahead thanks to its style, while not putting enough pressure on the story itself. The mismatch of the mediocre story and the overstretched plot almost derails the meticulous set-designed and claustrophobic noir feel to the movie.Acting creds are generally fine with Brad Greenquist as the Porter giving the best performance of the lot. All in all worth a watch and I could see Merkin making a name for himself given a script with actually can fill-up the required runtime.

This was a very good movie. I put off renting it for a couple months because it looked like it would be stupid but I am glad I finally saw it. This is a clever and unique movie. The last couple movies that Brittany Murphy has been in were not what I would call great(not even good really), so I wasn't expecting much. She didn't really have a huge speaking role in the movie but she did a pretty good job. The other two actors did a great job. I love the fiancé. He quickly went from a blubbering, crazy guy who was losing his mind to a smart quick thinking genius who pulled of the ultimate revenge. Definitely gonna be on the top of my list of good suspense movies to recommend to people.

This is not a terrible or overly boring film. It is a typical 'b-movie' made by Universal at Universal Studios, using a rebuilt portion of the vast 'Phantom of the Opera' set. This is a mystery-suspense type film that Universal used to be famous for.This particular film was directed by newcomer Alex Merkin, this is a full length version of a short film he made in 2005. The director has talent & I will be looking for other films from him. The cast comprises actor who are not yet to be widely known to audiences.The 2 male leads are done by Mike Vogel & Danny Pino, They & the rest of cast is quite talented. Brad Greenquist portrays the somewhat creepy porter effectively.This also happened to be the last film Brittany Murphy made before her tragic death in late 2009. 'Tis a pity as she was more than just a pretty face, she could act.For a low budget film the production values are OK. I would have liked it better if the script was more coherent.It could & should have been about 75 minutes long & not 93. This type film should never be longer than 75 minutes.Non-the-less the rating would never have been too much higher, its just not that type film, For what it is its an OK film.Ratings:**1/2 (out of 4) 67 points (out of 100) IMDb 6 (out of 10)

This film is certainly the worst I have seen this year. Be prepared to try and slow your brain down to the pace of this film or risk trying to lick your own elbow to stop yourself thinking about what might't happen. To give the film some merit, the intro credits are fun, and its nice being in a spooky Hotel. Cue some post-teen transatlantic two dimensional Dawsons creek drop outs and we are off to a mediocre start. Oh wait there we don't really care about the characters, so if they die its all a bit of fun; Sorry to break this to you but hardly anyone dies. So we are left trying to figure out 'if that really happened then wouldn't it go a bit more like this...' until we realise that it would never ever happen and so why are we still watching when we have figured out the plot while the slow motion sequences fanny about to pretentiously ominous bass note "dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun." AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!!