Z/Web

I saw something about this a while back and had wanted to see it, but it disappeared before I could. The plot sounded neat: the son of a horribly mean and arrogant Nobel laureate is kidnapped for ransom and he doesn’t care or even believe the boy’s been kidnapped (he’s suspicious the boy is behind the kidnapping and that it is fake). I caught the film on a movie channel and was excited. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as I hoped. I recommend it with reservations. The key problem is the film doesn’t know what it is: it’s really three films in one. The tone of the film is light-hearted humor like Get Shorty. We see hints of this in the quirky film-making style, the titles introducing the characters, and the outrageousness of the characters. But the kidnapping is grittily real, and the execution of the ransom pick-up is elaborate and intricate like an Ocean’s Eleven heist. So that’s a different feel than the humor we were expecting. Also, the humor is sparse and inconsistent. This makes the first half of the film uneven and confusing. As we get past the kidnapping and into the aftermath, suddenly the film takes a new twist (which I won’t reveal) leading to something that reminded me strongly of the classic Pacific Heights, where a seemingly harmless and charming person diabolically takes over and threatens our hero with disaster. While I loved the psychological games this produced, it had a completely different feel from the light-hearted spoof of earlier, and it was too brief, for the film too quickly went on to the third (or fourth, depending on how you count) feel, with the hero teaming up with his mom to stop the bad guy. It was done well: extremely clever and realistic, and the tables turning on the bad guy was satisfying. However, it was yet another tone in a film that had too many. So the bottom line is that this film has a remarkably clever, intricate plot, some terrific psychological manipulation, and a wonderful table-turning conclusion, but the whole thing feels awkward, haphazard, and confusing. You aren’t sure if this is comedy, dramedy, gritty crime drama, psychological thriller, or what, and that leads to confusion and unease. I found it awkward to sit through because of that. On the one that meant it kept surprising me, but on the other it really felt like three or four movies stuffed together into a mishmash. As I said, recommended but with reservations. Definitely see it to get what you can out of it, but don’t expect a pure experience.