Kept me interested, and that's all that matters

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2008)

My review of this movie would simply be: Pretty good, not bad. People seem to be bashing it left and right, but I guarantee you those same people were interested in it from start to finish.
Here are my favorite things about it... 1. It takes a taboo issue of suicide and makes it involuntary, which is totally disturbing. Put yourself in the movie, no matter how strong a person you are, you too would be committing suicide just like everyone else. Shymalan is great at making you think about how you would handle the situation he presents.
2. People keep saying the acting was terrible all around. That's just not true. There were 3 great characters, all portrayed perfectly by Jeremy Strong, Betty Buckley, and Frank Collison.
3. The movie was not too long. In fact, it was the perfect length for the story. I never got bored.
Problems with this movie... 1. Mark Wahlberg should always be a bad guy.
2. Some of the suicide scenes were just grueling, in particular, the later ones, which just seemed like audience punishment. By the end of it, I couldn't even think of a method that we didn't see, or wasn't mentioned.
The movie definitely gave me bad dreams, which is part of the masochism of seeing scary/suspenseful movies, so all around I'd say good job, but there's no way I'll be re-watching this one. 7/10.