Nine Dead (2010)

Chris Shadley

Writer:

Patrick Wehe Mahoney

Cast:

Melissa Joan Hart – Kelley

William Lee Scott – Jackson

John Terry – Shooter

James C Victor – Eddie

Marc Macaulay – Father Francis

Lucille Soong – Nhung Chan

Chip Bent – Sully

Edeick Browne – Leon

Daniel Baldwin – Detective Seager

Andrew Sensenig – Parks

Lawrence Turner – Googan

 

 I believe I have said this before but I normally don’t like taking recommendations, and this one was mentioned to me back in November by my little sister. The story is about nine people all trapped in some basement and they have to figure out why they are there. They seem to come from all walks of life, some of them don’t even appear to have English as a first language. The guy claims that he will let everyone free if they can figure it out but he will be coming into the room and killing someone every ten minutes.

The first time these people get to talk you get the impression that most of them have the same IQ as a box of rocks. First they think its the cops trying to get them to admit to some wrong doing. They learn real quick when the guy comes in and shoots a guy in front of everyone. The biggest problem with this cast of characters is that most of the people in the room are unlikeable. Melissa Joan Hart is the most unlikable for the fact that she really isn’t great in this role. We have an actor who spent some time in jail because of a drug bust, Sully the mafia guy (who is one of my favorites), a priest, a pedophile, an insurance guy…. a robber. Not a very likeable group of people.

The concept reminds me a lot of a couple other movies I have watched. The idea is not overly original and typically I really like these kind of movies. I enjoying guessing at the reasoning behind the movie, my first guess was wrong but I actually ended up pretty freaking close.

The problem with the movie is that real quick you start to like the villain more than the victims. This is a real problem because in this kind of movie you need to care about the group and with the main person being so unlikable.

Sully is by far the best character in the whole movie. He really seems to be the only one who truly believes that he was a bad person and deserved to die. He even had the best line delivery in the whole movie. I really wish he had been the main character, Kelly (Hart) is about the worst in her role by far. I really hoped that every time the guy came into the room he would shoot her to get her off the screen. She sucks, I’m sorry but her acting was horrendous. There are things that will make me feel sorry for a character regardless but she has so flat and.. well not good, that I just hoped that she would die soon.

In the end I can’t say that I would recommend this movie to a whole lot of people. It’s not something that deserves an “f” but I feel like it is just middle of the road. Nothing original was presented in this movie. If you want to see a film like this that is actually strong… go for the first Saw movie instead.

Grade C

Tags: Andrew Sensenig, C, Chip Bent, Chris Shadley, Daniel Baldwin, Edeick Browne, James C Victor, John Terry, kidnapping, Lawrence Turner, Lucille Soong, Marc Macaulay, Melissa Joan Hart, mystery, Patrick Wehe Mahoney, Review, William Lee Scott