Netflix
sent me House of 9 today,
and the description on the DVD envelope says this thriller borrows from Agatha
Christie and Saw II, so there's that.
I actually enjoyed it a little bit more I was expecting to, mainly
because it spends more time on the psychological stuff than the old
ultraviolence. Still, it’s not exactly
my type of movie.
In this
film, nine strangers are abducted and wake to find themselves trapped in a
large, sleekly modern-looking house.
There's a disembodied voice on a loudspeaker, as there usually seems to
be in these kinds of movies, telling them what's up: the last one standing will
walk out with a duffel bag full of cash.
The voice behind the curtain sends no threats after them. He only manipulates the environment –
limiting their food, messing with the temperature, leaving one of the
characters with a gun – and waits for them to turn on each other.
All the
characters chosen for this little “game” come from different backgrounds,
selected for maximum in-fighting: haves
and have-nots, white and black, law-abiding and criminal. As such, they're written more as types than
characters. PC plays Max Roy, a wealthy
clothing designer.
Among
the nine, Max falls on the less sympathetic side of the scale. He's more than a little classist, quick to
judge others, and when thrust into a horrific situation, his first priority is
his own survival. Not a bad guy
specifically, just more of a run-of-the-mill snob who looks out for number one
when his back is to the wall. Acted well
enough – I could buy Max as a person rather than a sketch.
The
film also features Morven Christie, who was on Who in “Tooth and Claw,”
and that disembodied voice on the loudspeaker?
Downton Abbey's Carson – yeah.
Accent
Watch
Sounds
like London. The Scottish OO's creep
through a little bit in the more emotionally-charged scenes.
Recommend?
In
General
– Meh. I don't watch a lot of films in
this genre, but I'd say it's probably a middling psychological thriller. I'm sure there are plenty of others more
worth watching.
PC-wise – Not
necessarily. If you're a big fan, you'll
like his performance here, but don't put it on the top of your must-watch list.
Warnings
A fair
amount of language, dark themes, and a little sexual content. Violence, of course – not super-gory or
twistedly inventive. More like what a
bunch of regular people could realistically do when pushed to their limits.
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