Interesting premise for about 5 minutes.

Rating: 3/10 (4 May 2006)

You know, just when some know-it-all says, for the upteenth time, "all the plots that can be done have been done" or "there are no original story ideas," somebody pulls out a new one.
This one isn't an absolutely unique idea, but in the initial moments of the film, there was great potential. Take a standard mystery/thriller convention: the locked room mystery. How the heck did the killer escape? How can we get in there? Then just reverse the premise: How the hell did we get in here? How do we get out?
As I said, it's been pulled off before (Cube comes to mind), but the very tight limitations here - one room, one tape recording, one gun, two guys, two chains - made it seem this was going to be an intense little flick. The added frisson of the little test, the puzzles to be figured out, could have made this a remarkable two-man-play translated to screen, a psychological study, lots of things.
Then? It all falls to hell and gone. For some reason, the screenwriter and director made the worst mistake in their artistic lives: they indulged in flashbacks. Then we get flashbacks within flashbacks. Then we get framed stories with flashbacks, inside the flashbacks, inside the flashbacks. Suddenly, a claustrophobic and genuinely creepy premise tuns into an ensemble gore-fest, edited with all the tricks - jump cuts, silhouette lighting, sharp angles... Boring. Strictly for the VH1 crowd. That the characters turn out to have no decent motivation (and that includes our unseen villain and our heroes) is simply par for the course once this movie takes that sad, sad turn down the road to mediocrity.
Pity.
Grade: D+