Oxygen (1999) User Reviews

Oxygen: Hit and miss thriller

[Platypuschow · 5/10 · 9 July 2018]

Starring Adrien Brody and Maura Tierney this little thriller has some good ideas but thoroughly fails to correctly utilize them.

It tells the story of a cop facing her demons while getting pulled into a case where a millionaires wife has been kidnapped and buried alive. The kidnappers are demanding cash for her location, but is everything as it seems?

Though I don't consider Brody a competent actor he is suitably evil here and plays the part well. Lead Tierney however is a passable actress with a real likeability fact, sadly she seems to be stuck with one single facial expression in every scene of every role she has ever taken. If I had to describe it I'd say the look of a woman who just witnessed her cat pee in her handbag 2 minutes before she's due to go out.

What lets the movie down the most is the weak sub-plot, it just simply isn't needed and takes the movie in directions it simply shouldn't have gone down. Due to this the actual plot feels watered down and not given 100% of the attention (Which it should have had).

Oxygen isn't terrible, it's just decent ideas in the hands of poor writers.

The Good:

Cast are competent

Couple of good ideas

The Bad:

Sub-plot damages the film

Should have been longer

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I don't like Adrien Brodys face

A cat may have peed in Maura Tierneys handbag

Taut Crime Thriller

[FlickJunkie-2 · 7/10 · 5 February 2000]

This made for TV psychological crime thriller exceeded my expectations. The story begins with the abduction of a rich wife for ransom. She is buried alive and her abductor sets about collecting the ransom for the location of her grave. However, this is really not the story but only the set up. The real story is about what happens after he is caught as the police and the FBI race against time to get him to reveal where she's buried.

Our sociopathic villain, known to us only as Harry (after his idol Harry Houdini) is well prepared for the psychological cat and mouse game that follows as he had planned what he would do if he were caught. The result is an effective (though often superficial) contest of psychological one upsmanship between Harry (Adrien Brody) and our heroine police detective, Madeline (Maura Tierney).

The story has some noticeable plot flaws for a film that is attempting to be a serious crime drama. Certain elements of Harry's escape attempts are implausible. Much of the dialogue between the police officers and FBI agents was inane drivel that made them look like idiots. There are other problems later in the story involving the buried wife that are also troubling. These are not enough, however, to mar an otherwise well crafted plot.

I was most impressed by the photography, not just the look of the film, but the way the images presented themselves. Director Richard Shepard used the camera very creatively, using objects in foreground and background to dramatize certain images. There was an excellent shot of Madeline's reflection seen in extreme close-up in Harry's eye. The handheld chase scenes made you feel like you were running behind the action. This is a level of directing that is not normally seen on TV. The whole film had a very raw, real look. Things were dirty and disorganized, just like in real life rather than being carefully and symmetrically placed.

The acting ranged from fair to excellent. The cops and the husband were generally pretty mediocre with moments of nausea. Maura Tierney was good but didn't have the range to play Madeline effectively. Madeline's character required a combination of tormented, pathetic self abuser and case hardened cop. Tierney was outstanding at the tormented side, but came across as tentative and flaccid as the cop (which was the greater part of the role).

The best performance comes from Adrian Brody as Harry. He was wry and unsophisticated while being just close enough to the edge to keep you guessing if he was cunning or just a psychopath. He played the part with sarcastic disdain, as if the character thought he was smarter than he really was, which indeed was the case.

Terry Kinney's character, Madeline's cop husband Tim, didn't give him much to work with. He was a wimpy whining loser. Kinney did an adequate job at this portrayal.

I rated this movie 7/10. For those who enjoy a psychological crime thriller, it won't disappoint.

"Tell me, does your purple little husband lend you some of his tampons?" Nice enough thriller.

[poolandrews · 7/10 · 20 February 2006]

Oxygen starts one sunny afternoon in New York City as Frances Hannon (Laila Robins) is walking her pet dog around the block, a man (Adrien Brody) approaches her a begins to chat to her, at first he seems a pleasant & charming young man but he soon changes as he becomes aggressive, he threatens her & makes her get into a nearby car. He, & his accomplice (Michael Henderson), drive off to a wood where they bury Frances alive in a wooden coffin, she has about 24 hours worth of air left & the clock is ticking... Detective Madeline Foster (Maura Tierney) & her partner Jesse (Paul Calderon) are called onto the task force to find Frances & apprehend her kidnappers. They are both briefed, Frances rich husband Clarke (James Naughton) has received a videotape that demands he pay a $1,000,000 ransom or Frances will be left to suffocate & die an agonising & terrifying death. The money drop off goes OK until the kidnapper figures out the police are watching him, Foster has no choice but to arrest him without the knowledge of where Frances is & once in custody he refuses to say anything, will Frances be found in time before she runs out of air & why does her young kidnapper seem so clam, almost as if he is enjoying himself or maybe there are other less clear motives behind the events of the previous day...

Written, co-produced & directed by Richard Shepard I thought Oxygen was a nice tight, taut little thriller that isn't the sort of thing I usually like but it has a certain something about it. The script at it's most basic is pretty gripping & absorbing as time runs out for Frances while Harry the kidnapper toys with the police & FBI, although I have to say once Harry is arrested & stuck in that room the pace slackens considerably. I would say that what Oxygen deals with is what many would consider their worst nightmare, being buried alive & slowly running out of air & perhaps more could have been done with this concept as it concentrates a little too much on the games played by Harry with the authorities. One more thing, Harry's precise & exact plans rely far too much on luck & things he simply has no control over to make me convinced that he could have come up with such an elaborate & implausible scheme. I mean his whole plan is based on the fact that he would be placed in one room, in that they would handcuff him in a certain way & that he would definitely be able to pick the locks, that they would agree with his demands to the absolute letter & that there is a air conditioning vent in the room just big enough to crawl through & that he could actually reach it as well as being able to keep total control over a hostage so they don't raise the alarm. That's an awful lot of coincidences & a whole lot of luck as well. The character's are well developed & fleshed out, they have a little bit more depth than usual I loved the monologue about the lethal injection from the FBI agent who was meant to be intimidating.

Director Shepard does an OK job without being particularly outstanding, as a whole Oxygen is a little bland & forgettable but the solid story should paper over the lacklustre visuals. The film lacks any real tension or excitement but it does retain ones interest throughout, again thanks to the story. There isn't any violence to speak of except a gory gunshot wound at the end.

Technically Oxygen is OK, it's competently made, there are a few nice New York shots & a couple of minor car chases although there isn't much action as it's a dialogue & storyline driven film. The acting is good especially from the two leads, Tierney as the cop & the effective Brody as the cold, calculating villain.

Oxygen is a good thriller, it's short on action or violence but it has a good strong story to compensate. Personally I think it's well worth a watch.

An actor's thriller

[JohnnyPHreak · 31 July 2000]

Oxygen is a made for Cinemax thriller that does a one up on the thriller genre. This film is about the acting. It does what most other thrillers and films stay away from, the performances. A cop (Maura Tierney) with some very dark secrets is on the trail of a kidnapper (Adrien Brody) who buried a rich woman (Laila Robins) alive in the New York woods. This is a cat and mouse thriller from beginning to end. Adrien Brody is fantastic as a the sick, obsessed with Harry Houdini kidnapper. His acting is so real it's like he's not even trying. He's cunning, cleaver, smart and sick all at the same time. It's drama to the end. He really needs to be cast as the villain in more films. Put him in an action film and bring a whole new level to the word terrorist. Maura Tierney best know for her stint on Newsradio and Jim Carrey's ex-wife in Liar, Liar is just spectacular. She pulls off the cop with more than just problems. She beautiful, tough and confused. Throughout a lot of the film she's in tears. She can act and be tough. Get her some scripts, I wanna see this girl more often. The supporting cast is also great and each brings realism to their performances. Even though this film has dark characters and a dark subject matter, the film is very light looking. The brightness of the film will grab from the start. The colors stand out and are hardly missed. The film has a action flick look but it's a thriller. It's a different mix that works extremely well. Oxygen is an well acted thriller that will drain you. I highly recommend that all should run and check this one out. It's very high on the must see meter.

Coming up for air

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 18 August 2009]

**SPOILERS** Really bizarre crime thriller about this mentally unbalanced kook who believes himself to be the reincarnation of legendary escape artist Harry Houdini. This concentration camp survivor looking like individual goes by the name, no big surprise here, of Harry played by a emaciated looking skin and bones, a body that's perfect in escaping from straight-jackets and handcuffs, Adrien Brody.

Together with his partner in crime Greg "Handsome" Evens, Michael Henderson, Harry kidnaps both Frances Hannon, Laila Robins, and her pet Pooh,played by Duke the Dog, as she was out walking him outside her luxury apartment house one afternoon in Midtown Manhattan. Held for one million dollars in ransom money Harry demands from Frances' millionaire art collector husband Clark, James Naughton, that if he doesn't get the cash by 6:00 Am the next morning she'll be dead; Dying from suffocation by being buried alive in some unknown location outside the city limits.

The movie starts to get really strange when NYPD lady Det. Madeline "Maddy" Foster, Maura Tierney, is put on the case. With the police and Det. Foster casing out the money drop at the Queens Cemetery, where Harry Houdini just happens to be buried, Harry-the Psycho-leaves himself wide open to be captured by walking right into the trap that the police set for him. After a French Connection style car case thorough the city Harry is finally captured and put into police custody. It's then when we finally realize what exactly Harry's motives in kidnapping Frances, and her pet pooch, really were! They turned out to be just as crazy and unpredictable as he is!

We also get to see Det. Foster's dark and secret life as a S&M freak that she's been keeping from her boss in the NYPD as well as husband Capt. Tim Foster, Terry Kinney. This strange and destructive lifestyle is quickly picked up by, who's very obviously into S&M himself, Det. Foster's captive Harry! With that knowledge in mind Harry does everything he can to get under Det. Foster's skin making her job, in finding the buried alive France's Hannon and her Pooch, much harder then it already is.

***SPOILER ALERT*** We soon get to find out just that the not all there upstairs Harry really wanted to get himself caught in order to prove that he, like his hero Harry Houdini, can escape from any situation he finds himself in. Like being locked up in a jail cell in a New York City police station! Harry also uses his knowledge of Let. Foster's hang ups, as being into S&M, to cause her to lose her cool by hinting to her hubby Capt. Tim what a crazy freak he's married too. In the end Harry like most nut-cases like himself overplayed his hand in thinking that he's, not the NYPD, in control of what's going on in the movie. That leads to Harry ending up just where he put Frances, in a pine box, with him not worried about suffocating to death because of lack of oxygen because by then he wouldn't really need it anyway!

P.S Earlier in the film there's a big chase scenes under the Brooklyn West-End elevated subway line that starts at the 62nd Steet station. It's that very same subway station where the exciting car chase in the film "The French Connection" ended with NYPD Det. Popeye Doyle gunning down his attempted assassin Frog #2 after chasing him down, after he derailed the hijacked subway train that he commandeered, and trapping him there!

Very Good B-Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 6 September 2021]

In Manhattan, Frances Hannon (Laila Robins) is walking with her dog on the sidewalk when she is kidnapped by two young men, Harry (Adrien Brody) and Handsome (Michael Henderson). They head to the outskirts of New York and bury her alive in the woods. Then they send the tape to her wealthy husband requesting one-million-dollar ransom. The emotionally disturbed detective Madeline 'Maddy' Foster (Maura Tierney), who is secretly masochistic and has a drinking problem, is assigned by her husband and captain Tim (Terry Kinney) to investigate the case and they conclude that Frances has only twenty-four hours of oxygen to breath. They succeed to catch Harry that proves to be a mastermind and she has only a few hours to try to find where Frances is. Will she succeed?

"Oxygen" is a very good B-movie, with Maura Tierney and Adrien Brody in the lead roles. Their performances are excellent and the duel between their characters is engaging. Maddy Foster is a totally believable character, with problems, weakness and very smart. The conclusion with an open end relative to the relationship of Maddy and Tim is another plus in this thriller. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "24 Horas para Morrer" ("24 Hours to Die")

What a pleasant surprise

[smatysia · 7/10 · 3 March 2013]

What a pleasant surprise for a (mostly) video-release movie. I checked it out due to Maura Tierney, who is so pretty and such a good actress. I think she would have been great in feature films, but I suppose her looks are more girl-next-door pretty, instead of supermodel pretty. She does very well here with an obviously damaged character. But then the film has Adrien Brody, from before his Oscar win, looking impossibly young, chewing the scenery with extreme gusto. Also Terry Kinney, playing his patented damaged cop. Sure, the film has some flaws, a few plot holes, and some odd minor characters. But for what it is, it is well worth a look.

For Brody/Tierney fans

[allfunandgames · 6/10 · 25 January 2003]

A rich housewife has been kidnapped, and Oxygen has all the hallmarks of a straight-to-video release, and has very little else on offer. Regular plot twists (some good, some obvious) keep the viewer from changing channels, but average directing and a formulaic plot prevents Oxygen being as good as it hopes to be. Bonus: Lots of familiar faces in the supporting cast.

Best Bit: Adrien Brody has a ball in a sadistic role

Worst Bit: Story has holes and is less than gripping

6/10 (I'm a big Brody fan)

Routine Crime Story

[gazineo-1 · 5/10 · 4 April 2001]

Routine crime story enhanced by the outstanding performance Adrien Brody gives us of a clever, cynical and sadistic killer who buried a woman alive just to fun. The plot has some flaws and the ending has no climax at all. Despite these negative points, the film has its moments, for example the audacious escape of Brody from the police headquarters and the poignant dialogue he keeps with the female cop (Tierney) in charge of the case. I give this a five.

Interesting concept, poor script.

[marshmallow_pies · 6/10 · 3 April 2003]

This is not a good movie, but is compelling enough to sit through. There are two reasons for this: 1) Adrien Brody is absolutely brilliant. I have nothing bad to say on his part. 2) The idea was interesting. Quite frankly, if the film was a cinema release, and had a bigger budget, it would have been a worthwhile thriller. But it didn't.

I would recommend this for any Brody fans. This is probably the most interesting role he has ever played, and he does it well. He just shouldn't be an evil freak, but there you have it! He is! And it was impossible for me to hate him because he is so amazing to watch.

However, stay away if you are one who tends to try and make sense of a B-grader. For you will end up confused and irritated. The rest of the cast was pretty shocking, and they should stick to TV.

Amusing enough for a lazy rainy day.

confused thriller

[ThrownMuse · 5/10 · 15 December 2004]

Adrien Brody and Maura Tierney in a "buried alive!" thriller, this oughta be fantastic! So I thought. This is an MOR straight-to-cableish film. Tierney does a good job of playing the "badass cop on the outside, masochist on the inside." Brody is way too obnoxious as the male lead. The film starts out entertaining and action-packed, but then there is strange character development between the two leads that doesn't make much sense. It tries really hard to say something deep, but isn't clear as to what that is. There are some interesting plot twists that will keep you watching, but overall this one is only for fans of Tierney and "buried alive!" movies in general. My Rating: 5/10.

Well-made thriller...

[dwpollar · 8/10 · 31 March 2002]

1st watched 3/31/2002 - 8 out of 10(Dir-Richard Shepard): Well-made thriller that is advertised by it's depiction of being buried alive and is actually much more than this. Tierney & Brody give wonderful performances in each of their roles and the direction is almost spotless. Very overlooked movie which deserves much more attention for how well it was done despite not working for a major movie company. I will be looking for more by Mr. Shepard whose direction really made this movie work as well as it did.

Thrilling - go and get it!

[WARFAIR · 7/10 · 27 August 1999]

Wow! A great movie. Well, at least sometimes.

A great start, nice playing and a (nearly) foreseeable ending.

But the story is good though, so give it a try. It is really difficult to comment on this movie. I just had all the time a feeling of foreseeing everything but it wasn´t boring.

You really have to see this one.

7 out of 10 points (alternatively: 3 out of 4).

Melodrama drivel takes away from the thrills that could have been

[Seth_Rogue_One · 3/10 · 19 August 2015]

This 'movie' feels more like a rejected pilot for a cop melodrama TV series in the likes of 'Hillstreet Blues' than a psychological thriller

With it's overabundance of focus on 'the wrong things' like the police couple with drinking- and relationship problems becoming the main focus very often instead of the actual crime that most of us viewers tuned in for

And it looks it as well, with cheap budget and limited sets

The only thing that sticks out if just a little is Adrien Brody who's never bad but not even him can save this melodramatic drivel

I liked Maura Tierny in the 'ER' series but she seriously has one facial expression through-out the whole movie, the 'I'm trying seriously not to start drinking again' depressed look

Give this one a pass

Excellent, intelligent film

[Uthman · 29 August 1999]

In OXYGEN, Richard Shepard has refined his approach to character-driven crime thrillers first seen in his previous, also excellent film, MERCY. Armed with experience and a bigger budget, Shepard has wrested outstanding performances from Maura Tierney and Adrien Brody, in their best work to date. Both characters are quite believable, and their defects are gently extracted and displayed by the subtle script. There are no stereotypes or one-dimensional characters in the whole film.

This is not to say that this is some esoteric, art-house movie, suitable only for clove-smoking turtleneck-wearers. The action scenes are well-executed and edited. Camera work is very nice; the long Steadicam shot in the train is especially memorable. Tension holds on throughout, and even the asides (such as an FBI agent's humorous soliloquy about the death penalty) integrate well and don't distract.

I sure would like to see what Richard Shepard could do if given some Really Big Bucks.

All is not well that doesn't end well.......

[merklekranz · 6/10 · 3 March 2008]

Adrian Brody gives a very creepy tone to "Oxygen", which is a good thing. Maura Tierney is credible as a tormented cop. The screenplay about an ego driven kidnapper who idolizes Harry Houdini is different and intriguing. His ability to manipulate and outsmart the police and F.B.I. keeps things interesting and for about the first 75 minutes almost everything seems believable. Towards the end and especially with the ending, logic is completely suspended, the plot becomes contrived, and the audience is left with a preposterous conclusion. It is a real shame that "Oxygen" ends so badly, because the movie is highly watchable up until the wheels come off. - MERK

Decent "neo-noir"

[caa821 · 7/10 · 2 July 2008]

This is a pretty fair "neo-noir" presentation, which I'd missed hearing about during the nine years since its release - but found in my paper's local-edition weekly t.v. listings. They only gave it 1-1/2*'s, but noticing that Adrien Brody and Maura Tierney were in the cast, I decided to take a look. One of the best aspects of this flick is the character each represents - two of the most weirdly fascinating, this side of Dennis Hopper and his companions "Blue Velvet," or the cult classic Rory Calhoun opus, "Motel Hell." Brody as the youthful, sort of nerdy-yet-wicked, braces-wearing, nefarious villain; and Tierney as the competent, dedicated, tough detective, with her strange compulsive, secretive nocturnal predilections, sort of a "masochistic savant."

Perhaps not great, and with some contrasting moments. Sometimes the cops here were more realistic and "low-key" than in most of this type of movie fare, and at others were the types of doophuses we see regularly, enforcing the law, in these flicks.

All-in-all, a good 7* presentation, and not a bad way to spend the two hours' viewing.

As a sort of imaginary "sub-plot" I couldn't help visualizing from early-on, I was hoping that Brody and Tierney might meet-up at some point - the confrontation between the quintessential sadist and masochist, respectively. I thought of dialog between them, replicating a joke I once heard: the masochist says to the sadist, "Hit me!" (or, alternatively, "Hurt me!"). The sadist replies, "NO!!" (When they finally met in the interrogation room, there were a couple of occasions when I thought this just might occur.)

Nothing new but it's OK to watch

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 6/10 · 6 April 2012]

"Oxygen" can be viewed as an intersection between "The Silence of the Lambs" and "The Vanishing", simple as that. In it, Maura Tierney plays the tormented detective Foster with her own complications that must investigate the kidnapping of a rich woman (Laila Robins). The mastermind behind this and also for burying the woman alive is a psychotic Harry Houdini fan named Harry (Adrien Brody) that isn't much interested in the ransom money of US$1 million he asked but he's more concerned in playing games with the cops and after meeting the female detective, you don't even have to think twice on things will go from here. In the meantime, the FBI has 24 hours to find the woman before the worst happens.

It's very well made, well acted, has its great moments (the chase in the subway is amazingly well edited, good thrills in there) but is not challengeable like the fore-mentioned classics. The resemblance is so obvious specially in presenting a female cop that needs to go to the level of the criminal, playing games that might haunt her for life - Clarice Starling, hello! This is the least of the problems. While trying to give to the audience some shocking revelations the movie failed with some inconsistencies that are so disappointing that you might feel embarrassed about it (the dog buried not barking and all happy to be in the coffin? C'mon!).

The tension works, Brody makes his scary character quite appealing and likable, at times funny and very sinister, the best in the show. Maura Tierney nicely represented someone that must forget her addictions to stay good in what she does best, to catch bad guys. The supporting cast is fine with Terry Kinney, Dylan Baker and Frankie Faison (the only actor to appear in all Hannibal Lecter films. Funny coincidence that he's also here?).

Enjoyable but a little tiresome even its short duration, good but never great. Quite a guilty pleasure. Have a fun watch. 6/10

So much potential

[roarkish · 5/10 · 18 June 2005]

With a compelling cast and half decent screenplay this film had potential. The low budget didn't help. The cheezy cinematography didn't help. But it was the ending. The ending. Oh god, the ending. What a letdown. I give a lot of credit to Richard Shephard. He will make good films sometime soon. But what a crappy ending. As is the problem with most good thrillers, the villain is more likable than the hero. With everything so meticulously planned out, how could he not foresee the conclusion.

Garbage.

Again, I can only hope for better in the future from Mr. Shephard.

Especially better endings.

This movie is ridiculously stupid with numerous plot holes

[vinnybarbin223556 · 1/10 · 12 March 2014]

This movie does not deserve a long review so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. First I'd Like to point out that the performances by Tierney and Brody are not why this movie does not work for me. Two fine actors to say the least. The biggest problem, among others, is that in order to make many of the scenes work they had to make the cops really REALLY stupid. Morons in fact! About midway through the movie (and I did watch it to the end unfortunately) an old sitcom called Hogans Heroes came to mind. You remember, they had to make the Germans incredibly dumb in order to give we Americans a few laughs. Well, I guess the directors and/or writers forgot that this DOES NOT WORK IN A SERIOUS MOVIE! Do not watch this movie. It is a complete waste of time. Watch only if you have nothing else to do OR possibly while your doing something else LOL. I would have given this flick a BIG FAT ZERO if they'd let me. So I had to give it 1 star. (sigh)

Great B Thriller

[seltzer · 8/10 · 31 May 2003]

Good performances, especially from Adrien Brody as a psychotic sadistic killer with a Houdini obsession and Maura Tierney as a cop, make this film stand out. The story is good, but would have suffered in the hands of a less competent director and cast. This is a movie that depends a lot on performance to deliver, and it does. Some of the supporting cast could have been played by better actors, but they are serviceable and are mostly meant to occasionally prod the story along another notch. On the whole, the cast stays out of the way of Brody and Tierney, who are the whole show. It's definitely worth seeing, and another one of those films that seemingly came out of nowhere, as I never heard of it before. I like solid B movies, and this stands out as one of the best. Its obscurity helps to conceal its surprises, and it helps to be surprised with this movie. I gave it an 8 out of 10.

One of the worst I've seen lately

[ConiferDon · 2/10 · 7 April 2014]

Just so poorly done! Amateur hour in the plot full of holes. Dialogue and action sequences (including the most dull car chase ever) from 1970s TV shows.

Maura does the best to pout her way through but Adrian is hard to watch. None of the other characters feel remotely believable. The writing feels remarkably immature, including a too-long scene supposedly full of psychological revelation that simply doesn't work.

Pacing leads nowhere and even at a brief 90 minutes we were wishing it were all over. Tried to get my wife to quit a number of times but she talked me into waiting through the end (which includes some astoundingly unrealistic developments and a supposed twist that left us laughing and wishing we hadn't wasted our time. Really a mess...

A solid thriller

[RussianPantyHog · 11 March 2004]

More articulate people than myself have said it all; but I'll have a go anyway :) Oxygen is a tightly paced and utterly watchable thriller about a female detective (Maura Tierney) on the trail of a psychopathic kidnapper (Adrian Brody) and his buried-alive victim, while fighting demons of her own. The 2 leads are both astonishing. Maura Tierney is SO beautiful and SO talented it's almost indecent :) She has such a thoughtful / intelligent face and completely captivated me with her role in Liar Liar. She's just as good in this movie too. Bruce Almighty might have been half decent if MS Tierney had played the role Jennifer Aniston so completely messed up!! Adrien Brody is another fantastically talented actor yet to get the 'star' status he deserves. He was brilliant in The Pianist and he's brilliant here too. His character was very very scarey. So. Well worth watching.

As bad as it could get

[fjhuerta-2 · 2/10 · 5 June 2000]

There are few things to say about this incredibly stupid movie, but the most important thing is: stay AWAY from it. It's so bad I was about to leave the theater after 15 minutes of it, but I stayed, hoping it would get better (by the way, how come I saw it in a movie theater if it was made for TV?). The acting is bad, dialog is stupid, the premise is dumb, and you actually begin to think that you would be grateful if the woman died. You never really care about the characters, actually.

It might be the worst movie I have seen in 2 or 3 years. It is that bad.

Tense, derivative crime thriller.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 2 July 2010]

I was impressed when I first saw this. Not only is the story packed with suspense -- a kidnapped woman has been buried with a day's worth of air and it's the cops' job to find out where she is before she suffocates -- but the performances are better than what we've come to expect from yarns about the police. Furthermore, not ONCE is detective Maura Tierney asked to hand over her badge and gun! In fact, Maura Tierney is quite alright. She's a decent actress and she's right for the part of a policewoman so guilt-ridden that she has a secret lover who burns her with cigarettes and otherwise torments her. She's not a glamor puss either and I liked that too. Julia Roberts would have spoiled it, not through any lack of talent but simply because of her refulgent beauty.

Adrian Brody was a big surprise too. He's the character who buried the young woman alive, killed his accomplice for no particular reason, and now sits in the interrogation room being alternately bullied and cosseted by the police and the FBI in order to get him to squeal about the victim's burial place. He has the face of a Dead End Kid and the whining, contemptuous demeanor of a spoiled brat. It's a hoot when the FBI takes over the case, the menacing agent enters the room, surveys the iron-bound Brody, and goes into this detailed spiel about how horrible it is to die from a lethal injection. Brody listens impassively for a few minutes then looks up with a twisted smile and remarks, "What a stupid monologue." It's all so taut that you get caught up in the story, but it doesn't hold up well on a second viewing. First, you can't help noticing that there is a formulaic car chase through the streets of Manhattan and that it's lifted straight out of "The French Connection". The two drivers glare at each other and try to bump each other's car off the street, while angrily yanking at the wheel.

Then you notice that, as a matter of fact, the whole film is modeled on "The Silence of the Lambs." Brody is a proletarian Hannibal Lecter -- smart, savvy, able to scan others for their weaknesses and then exploit them, an escape artist of a high degree. He teases the hell out of the cops, especially Maura Tierney. He promises to give her some hints if she'll tell him how she came by those cigarette burns on her arms.

The problem is that Hannibal Lecter had a genuine reason for probing Jody Foster's psyche. He'd been penned up in solitary for years. And his curiosity was boundless. I mean, you MUST have curiosity as well as brains to endure the grueling routine of medical school, then psych internship, then years of private practice. But Brody's villain has no such motivation. He's as clever as a sewer rat but what does he get out of Maura Tierney's confession? Unlike Jody Foster's Big Reveal about the slaughter of the lambs, Tierney's isn't even particularly interesting. It's written flatly and Tierney doesn't bring it off.

There's another thing that impressed me as slightly off on a second viewing. Maura Tierney commits homicide. She holds a gun on Brody, lying helpless in a pit, and she decides to bury him alive so she starts kicking dirt into the hole. But in the face of Brody's feculent mocking -- "Oh, yeah, bury me, gimme more, MORE!" -- she shoots him in the chest and kills him. That's not acting as an agent of justice. That's revenging yourself on someone for reasons of personal hatred, and it's usually called "murder."