Skip to main content

Butterfly on a Wheel (2007)

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Shattered. Feature film. (2007, 95 mins) IMDB

...one of the best thrillers I've seen in a long time...

A

s in many thrillers there are twists and turns and they are based on withheld information and disinformation. This film is no different in that regard.

During the long, boring setup, we meet Mr. and Mrs. Perfect couple. They live in a perfect house in Chicago. They have a perfect young daughter. The husband has a perfect job where he's perfect. Life couldn't be any better. That's a typical setup for this type of movie because what follows is the complete upheaval of their life.

With plans for the weekend, a man confronts them in their SUV. He has a gun and tells them their daughter is a hostage. Do as I say and she won't be hurt.

So far there's nothing in this film we haven't seen before, but what follows is different including the ending. I think it's next to impossible to predict the third act, to guess what happens. I don't see how anyone could do. For that reason, I won't spell it out here. Probably.

To show us how different this film is, our kidnapper forces the couple to go to their bank and withdraw all the cash they can. With a suitcase full of cash, he proceeds to burn it. Ouch. Since we only see part of it burning, we should know better. Here is an element of misinformation. What appears to happen, doesn't happen. It also defies logic that someone would have his hand on $100,000 and burn it. That piques our interest, because if he doesn't want money from this couple, what does he want. That forms the central question of the movie. Why is doing this? The answer comes in the end and we don't expect what we find out. You have to love it.

I've said enough about the plot.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film (except for the tedious and slow setup). It should have been shortened.

Although this film stars Pierce Brosnan et al, the film fits into the independent category simply because it's Canadian film with a bunch of non-Canadians involved in it. The result is the film didn't have a massive marketing budget, didn't get reviewed, didn't get any push. Too bad for viewers because it's a worthwhile film to watch.

Posted 2009/04/28 at 20h02ET in Movie Commentary.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Please, Please, Please, No More

Saturday, October 8, 2011 ... what is the best way to start your novel ... C ount them. One. Two. I downloaded two thriller e-books from amazon.com, both published by the author, and they both started the same way: the character waking up and going about some morning ritual. Both books were in the top 100 bestsellers of Mystery & Thrillers Fiction. Both had many positive reviews. Those facts seemed encouraging, but once I read the opening scene, I stopped. I did not continue. But James that seems harsh? Perhaps, yes, but the writer is sending a signal with such an opening. It says, I have more to learn about writing thrillers for today’s audience. Why do I say that? Because a waking-up scene is mundane. It’s ordinary. It happens to us everyday. We don’t read thrillers for the mundane and ordinary. We read them for the extraordinary. We read them to live vicariously through the characters. We read them to be entertained. There is nothing in those waking-up scenes th...
2 comments
Read more

Analysis of Amazon E-book Fiction Bestsellers (Week #1)

Sunday, October 30, 2011 ... trying to make sense of the amazon bestsellers and pricing for e-books ... E ach hour Amazon updates its bestsellers lists. I have taken a daily snapshot of the top 20 bestsellers in the e-book fiction list for the past week. See here . What can be learnt from these data? 1. 4 out 5 of the bestsellers are from print or traditional authors. Most are brand-named authors who dominate the print bestsellers. 2. Almost all of the authors have multiple titles to their credit. The author of The Help is a notable exception. 3. The e-book prices of indie authors are substantially lower than print authors. For the most part, their titles are priced at $0.99. 4. The books on the list fall into four categories: (i) pre-release from brand-named authors, (ii) new or recently released titles (iii) long-term bestsellers (greater than one year), (iv) backlist titles. Indie authors fall into (ii) and (iv). 5. The indie authors includes authors who ...
2 comments
Read more

Checked Off

Sunday, April 11, 2010 ... one To Do is off the list ... I recently completed a task that was completely irrational. It was a fixture on my To-Do list because I always put it off. This week I decided to change that. I dug through my files of sketches and drawings and scanned them into my computer. A simple concept, sure, but tedious and time consuming. I suggest wearing latex gloves or buying hand lotion, but maybe that's a personal choice...Anyway, I now have a folder with 1.2 GBs of JPEG and PSD files. Here's an example from 1992. Right, where's that To-Do list? I want to sketch a line on it. Posted 2010/04/11 at 13h54ET in JamesPiper.com.
Post a Comment
Read more