What?

Rating: 1/10 (30 October 2016)

I am not a film critic. I do not pretend to be. Nor do I care. When I watch a movie I expect either entertainment or an interesting original artistic view into the human soul or mankind's history. Bottom line: it has to be fun or memorable to be worth watching. Otherwise it is a waste of time at best and poison the mind at worst.
This film is neither fun, nor memorable. It is a waste of time and a bitter pill.
This film is a tortured effort for a deep drama-thriller and is a massive fail. Its attempt to create some form of a moral is ludicrous. People with unhinged and nasty fantasies wrote it and put it together. No offense to Alvarez but I have no respect for his work. While keeping up with the secrets of the trade the characters are unrealistic, unsympathetic, and the "glamorous" ending, which contains a twist, does not make sense. You will be on the edge of your seat not because of suspense but because of disgust. As in all ridiculous contemporary films out of Hollywood, which makes 95% of them vulgar and deprave sexuality seems to be the way to entertain.
There were no good guys -- all bunch of criminal scumbags. The chick's cheesy dream to go surfing in California with her sister is just too cliché and ridiculous. I just could not sympathize with any of the characters. Art is the ability to compress in two hours a story which will show you life and will make you ponder. Forget about it with this flick. You'll be happy that it's over and sorry that you started it.
If you want to watch a film of high artistic quality, totally unpretentious, based on true events, watch Gruz 200 (Cargo 200, 2007, director Alexei Balabanov). No Hollywood gimmicks and an absolute horror. With absolutely minimalist use of gore. Watch and compare.