Nice work for a film student, but not suitable for the big screen

Rating: 3/10 (12 April 2008)

I am mildly shocked that a movie this high-rated can turn out this bad. Classifiable as typical student work, you are basically going to see a big lot of movie clichés stitched together to form an end result that never convinces. The main storyline idea is good, but the script is terrible to the point of being blatantly moronic. All of the persona's in the movie completely fall out of character more than once which makes the story and the characters themselves progressively unlikely and unbelievable.
The summit of this all is typified in the supposed morally superior main character not hesitating for even a second to barbarically shoot an unarmed, crying criminal through the back of the head and - if that's not enough - be generally praised for this by both his cop friend and (supposedly sensitive ánd sensible) girlfriend afterwards. Thinking these are odd morals, the surprise is complete when 'the other difficult moral decision of the movie' (see scripting textbook chapter 4b) is made leading to the child being returned to her righteous mother which, for the main character's girlfriend, turns out to be enough reason to, completely unexpectedly and illogically, start hating her lover and business partner enough to break up completely. This (and the final, utterly predictable scene that follows) completes the story's drama which obviously has been the film maker's objective, but unfortunately it is, instead, more successful in driving home the idea that you've actually been watching a very bad movie.