Obviously, Dafoe has some serious acting chops, but a few key mistakes transformed this from what could've been a truly amazing movie to a bland bowl of treacly nonsense.
1) The ending - What? No catharsis, whatsoever? Not even a shot of Dafoe hoisting his grimy, bandaged leg out of the skylight? How did he get rescued? What was it like to breathe fresh air again? Did he see Jasmine or the doorman? Etc, etc, etc.
2) The many many helicopters - We see Dafoe drinking on New Year's Eve and watching fireworks explode everywhere across the city, yet there's no sound inside the apartment (which makes sense). But over and over again at different times, we hear helicopters flying past. Why? This led to absolutely nothing. Was it supposed to make us think his "buddies" were going to come rescue him?
3) The cut-off utilities - Why would a mega wealthy man keep the lights and electricity on but not the phone and water when he's out of town? And why was the sprinkler system AND the aquariums supplied with water but not the rest of the apartment (including the toilet and possibly an automatic icemaker)? It's not like paying the bills is a problem for the owner, so this makes zero sense. Even odder is the cutting off of the landline. Who would do that? It takes days if not weeks to get a phone line reconnected, even if you're rich.
4) The crazy HVAC system - Okay, smashing the fancy smart control panel and this causing a malfunction to overheat the apartment made sense, narratively. It also heightened the dramatic tension over the lack of water for Dafoe. But there was ZERO point in the subsequent "switch to ultra-cold" and then back to hot again. Total waste of narrative energy.
5) The f---ing pigeons - Over and over again, we see shots of pigeons on the balcony, and this makes it seem like they're going to play a role in the story. Will the starving Dafoe eat the dead pigeon? Will the live pigeon somehow deliver a message to his "friend" in the park? Nope. Literally nothing ever happens with the pigeons.
Speaking of which, I'd have to rewatch the movie (which I refuse to do), but it makes about zero sense for a millionaire with a penthouse apartment to have a balcony that YOU CANNOT GET TO. Who builds a place that?
6) Also, who the heck sets up a super complex operation to hack into an apartment security system and drop someone off onto a skyscraper with a helicopter in order to heist some artwork and then goes "uh oh, you're on your own" two seconds later? And then never even once tries to get Dafoe out (via Jasmine or some other way)? Utterly baffling who these "colleagues" of his were or why they're using a friggin' CB radio, etc, etc. The entire "heist" was frustratingly unexplained from beginning to finish.
Other than the above, I can accept some of the goofiness (the line about the 3 things to save from a fire, etc) and the weird art on the walls and the inexplicable rubber dummy in the creepy narrow hidden passage and all the bizarro dreams Dafoe has, etc. But this movie keeps building narrative tension only to let it deflate into nothingness.
Honestly, whoever wrote the script for this movie should be taken out behind the barn and put out of their misery. Because all the greatest acting in the world can't save the crappy writing.
1) The ending - What? No catharsis, whatsoever? Not even a shot of Dafoe hoisting his grimy, bandaged leg out of the skylight? How did he get rescued? What was it like to breathe fresh air again? Did he see Jasmine or the doorman? Etc, etc, etc.
2) The many many helicopters - We see Dafoe drinking on New Year's Eve and watching fireworks explode everywhere across the city, yet there's no sound inside the apartment (which makes sense). But over and over again at different times, we hear helicopters flying past. Why? This led to absolutely nothing. Was it supposed to make us think his "buddies" were going to come rescue him?
3) The cut-off utilities - Why would a mega wealthy man keep the lights and electricity on but not the phone and water when he's out of town? And why was the sprinkler system AND the aquariums supplied with water but not the rest of the apartment (including the toilet and possibly an automatic icemaker)? It's not like paying the bills is a problem for the owner, so this makes zero sense. Even odder is the cutting off of the landline. Who would do that? It takes days if not weeks to get a phone line reconnected, even if you're rich.
4) The crazy HVAC system - Okay, smashing the fancy smart control panel and this causing a malfunction to overheat the apartment made sense, narratively. It also heightened the dramatic tension over the lack of water for Dafoe. But there was ZERO point in the subsequent "switch to ultra-cold" and then back to hot again. Total waste of narrative energy.
5) The f---ing pigeons - Over and over again, we see shots of pigeons on the balcony, and this makes it seem like they're going to play a role in the story. Will the starving Dafoe eat the dead pigeon? Will the live pigeon somehow deliver a message to his "friend" in the park? Nope. Literally nothing ever happens with the pigeons.
Speaking of which, I'd have to rewatch the movie (which I refuse to do), but it makes about zero sense for a millionaire with a penthouse apartment to have a balcony that YOU CANNOT GET TO. Who builds a place that?
6) Also, who the heck sets up a super complex operation to hack into an apartment security system and drop someone off onto a skyscraper with a helicopter in order to heist some artwork and then goes "uh oh, you're on your own" two seconds later? And then never even once tries to get Dafoe out (via Jasmine or some other way)? Utterly baffling who these "colleagues" of his were or why they're using a friggin' CB radio, etc, etc. The entire "heist" was frustratingly unexplained from beginning to finish.
Other than the above, I can accept some of the goofiness (the line about the 3 things to save from a fire, etc) and the weird art on the walls and the inexplicable rubber dummy in the creepy narrow hidden passage and all the bizarro dreams Dafoe has, etc. But this movie keeps building narrative tension only to let it deflate into nothingness.
Honestly, whoever wrote the script for this movie should be taken out behind the barn and put out of their misery. Because all the greatest acting in the world can't save the crappy writing.