Emily (Alice Eve) is on her last day at work at this financial firm. David (Brian Gerghaty), an analyst at this firm, has been longing for Emily since she first showed up. His friend Corey the Douche (Josh Peck) believes David should make that bold move. As this little ‘trapped in a box’ horror thriller ATM plays out, David not having the testosterone available to ask out a pretty girl in a timely fashion will be his ruin.

It’s Christmas time in Canada. At least that’s where this movie was shot, I’m not sure if Canada was pretending to be some other North American City. Regardless it’s damned cold. There’s an office party at this firm where they serve hard liquor. This is semi-relevant. Emily excuses herself from the party and David finally gets the courage to talk to her and even offers her a ride home. Unfortunately on this day he’s also the ride for Corey the Douche. He implores Corey to catch a cab, but Corey has no money and David has no money to lend him, so he is stuck driving Corey home who is being ultra douchey in the back seat while David is trying to give Emily his best game.

Corey wants pizza to fix his low blood sugar, David says no. Corey whines until David says yes. Corey needs money, David says no. Corey whines until David says yes. David finds an out of the way, glass encased ATM machine, parks a good 250 yards away and dispatches Corey out of his car to get his money. After a few minutes pass, Corey is still in there and David goes to check on him. Then Emily gets out of the car to check on the both of them. Seems Corey’s ATM card doesn’t work, even though it worked to get him in the little building. Now, we’re guessing Corey didn’t have any money to begin with so it would’ve been beneficial to everyone if he had just said this, but oh well.

Now it’s time to leave this place, but there is an ominous hooded figure hanging outside the ATM in the subzero temperatures, just staring at these kids. Odd. What does he want? Maybe nothing. Then he murders some nearby guy walking his dog by bashing his head in the pavement. Not cool. So our three young adults are trapped in this ATM,

with a killer outside, and its mighty cold in the sparsely heated enclave. Plus Corey and David don’t have coats. Even though it’s the dead of winter in Canada. Then our killer cuts the heat. Did I mention that Corey and David don’t have coats in the dead of winter in Canada?

What does this guy want? Who is he? Tensions are running high in the ATM, though that’s not helping keeping things warm, as our tortuous killer’s torturous plan continues to evolve.

Directed by David Brooks, my first and main problem with his movie ‘ATM’ is a simple one. Now I’m no badass. Well… actually I am kind of, but for arguments sake let’s go ahead and assume that I am not. But if there’s some guy outside standing between me and my ride, I’m walking out there. We’ll see what happens. Now if it’s me and my boy, and we’re both young and apparently fit men, then we’re both walking out and we are beating this guy to death. Heck, Corey and David have already proven they can do at least that in this movie . We would NOT be sitting in a frozen ATM for hours upon end, waiting to die. After spending quality time with David and Corey, a better title for this would’ve been ‘Two Bitches and a hot chick Trapped in a Box’. Come on guys… work with me here.

Let’s go ahead and accept the fact, with difficulty, that David and Corey are bitches and just roll from there with this movie. Now ‘ATM’ isn’t all that bad. David Brooks has generated some tension with this scenario that these people are trapped in, Peck, Gerghaty and Alice Eve are effective scaredy cats in this situation they are trapped in, Alice Eve in particular does a fine job of looking like she’s freezing to death and our killer was effectively ominous, if not far too vague in his motivations, much to the detriment of this film.

There are a few troublesome inconsistencies that pop up here and there in this film. We could question why David parked his car so far away from the ATM, but Corey is a douche so he wanted to punish him. However, when checking on Corey, it would’ve been far easier to drive up to the ATM as opposed to walking that quarter mile I’m thinking. The lack of a coat thing is really bothering me, the fact that Emily left her purse in her car, with her cellphone, when she made her long trek to the ATM is a little odd since most women don’t leave their purse anywhere but on their shoulder. Our killer murdered anybody who came too close, except this one guy in a scene we don’t quite understand. A security guard shows up, sees some stuff that doesn’t look good at all, then gets out of his car, ignores the screams of the young adults, also stops a half mile away from the ATM, further ignores the screams of the young adults and gets what he gets. Then there was our killer who planned this thing down to a tee, but how do you plan, in the year 2012, for NOBODY to have a functional cell phone. His plan is screwed if somebody has a cell phone in their pocket. But then he really didn’t have this thing planned to a tee since he had to wing it for an awful lot his brilliant plan. And don’t ask why he’s doing this.

‘ATM’ had a nice atmosphere and some good performances, but there were way too many ‘only in the movies’ situations that went down to keep me from truly enjoying this one as much as I would have liked to.