Dumb but Occasionally Entertaining

Rating: 3/10 (18 October 2016)

I'm not the only reviewer on here to point out that if you want an audience to root for a character, you have to make that character likable. No one was worth cheering for in this. The three teenagers were scum. They broke into people's home, ejaculated on their beds, broke their precious items, robbed them, tried on their clothes and generally, probably, ruined their lives. There was a feeble attempt to make one of them more likable--oh, she has a little sister she's trying to protect. Big deal. Didn't work for me. I kept hoping she'd die. Unfortunately, the character who should have been the hero, the blind veteran, was such a mess of inarticulate grunting and weird, utterly unlikely abilities that I couldn't cheer for him either. I tried rooting for the dog, who really didn't deserve to be drugged and given the run around. He ought to have gotten the opportunity to bite someone, I felt. But he was a bit stereotypical really. No character development going on there. Good acting with the deep woofs though. So, three unpleasant teenagers, one unpleasant victim. Even that might have made a decent film if it had been given a coherent plot. Three able-bodied teens and one old, blind man and they couldn't get away? It beggars belief. And how many times can the old trope of NOT finishing someone off when you have them incapacitated and at your mercy be used by directors? It's OLD. And people can't be smashed in the head with a mallet and show no effects. They can't be shot in the belly (after a beating and falling some considerable distance) and THEN be stabbed in the SAME belly with garden shears and carry on like nothing has happened. Maybe Hollywood directors should be forced to be shot and stabbed with garden implements before they make crap like this again. Why the three stars and not one? I watched it through to the end. It has some tense moments. The acting is good. The filming is solid. It's just bad writing. And however good you make the rest of the filming, any movie stands or falls on the quality and credibility of its writing.