When I first saw the
trailer for this movie 'The Loft', I'm thinking it might
have a chance. I like the concept of some long time
married dudes having a secret place where they can behave
badly, I like the thought that something goes terribly wrong
in this little hideaway leading to distrust, sleight of hand
and mystery, and I'm liking the cast. It's looking
like we may have a slightly sleazy, but somewhat higher brow
erotic thriller on our hands. Plus the guy that
directed this movie, Eric Van Looy, has already directed
this very same movie like a hundred times in 18 different
languages. Well, we didn't get that slightly sleazy
erotic thriller I was looking for. Instead I got some
silly nonsense which still was entertaining me somewhat,
until it went completely bonkers at the end in an effort to
wrap itself up. Bonkers I tell you.
Our principles are Vincent (Karl Urban) the super slick and
slimy real estate developer who has built this getaway, his
friends Chris (James Mardsen) the psychiatrist and 'good
guy' of the group, the quietly creepy Luke (Wentworth
Miller), Chris's ultra violent and unstable half-brother
Phillip (Matthias Schoenaerts), and the boorish,
consistently inappropriate Marty as played by Modern
Family's Eric Stonestreet. For reasons I can't put my
finger on, Stonestreet was completely frozen out of that
trailer I saw. Shocked to even see him in this
movie. Maybe he's not hot enough to put in a trailer,
or maybe the fact his character is gay on Modern Family kept
him out of this trailer. Either way it's an outrage
and it's nigh time for fat dudes to rise up! Or maybe
get in shape. I choose rise up!
So if you've seen this trailer you know that there's a
bloody dead blonde handcuffed to the bed with some cryptic
Latin written in blood on the headboard. All five of
our guys are in the loft assaying this situation trying to
figure out who killed this woman. Logically speaking,
since they are the only ones with keys to this joint, it has
to be one of them. But not so fast… you haven't met
these guys wives, because every single one of them looks
like they are capable of murder. In particular Chris's
wife Allison (Rhona Mitra) who seems to hate the entire
planet Earth, and Luke's wife Ellie (Elaine Cassidy) who
looks like the devil. A cute version of the devil, but
the devil nonetheless. And then there's Chris's
liaison Anne (Racheal Taylor) who mentions a few things that
also cast her into suspicion as a suspect as well.
So our boys try to work
out the details in their brains, brains which we will admit
aren't very impressive, all things considered, until we get
to the truth of the matter. And it is this truth that
a film which was pretty shaky in keeping itself together to
begin with, just falls completely apart.
As 'The Loft' starts off we're kind of liking it, if for no
other reason than the cast is a solid one. Karl Urban
probably isn't the rangiest actor around, but he has a
certain charm and presence about him that is
undeniable. Eric Stonestreet probably relished the
opportunity to bang chicks in the bathroom as opposed to
making out with Jesse Tyler Ferguson on Modern Family, and
Wentworth Miller, as arguably the most talented actor of the
bunch, gets the opportunity to play another solidly weird
character. It's a shame that they had the beautiful
Rhona Mitra sport a mad-on throughout the whole movie, but I
guess we had to justify a reason as to why our 'good guy' of
the group was cheating on her in the first place.
Also taking into account the slick look of the picture and
the fact that there is a genuine mystery taking place since
I was in the dark with who and why this crime is committed,
I was able to overlook the often painful dialog coming out
the occasional characters mouths or the wacky scenario here
and there.
But then we come to our reveal, which I would actually spoil
for you, but it's too convoluted to do in the short space
allowed. This then leads to a second reveal which is
even worse. Now when a movie like this is done
correctly, you kind of guess what you think might be the
solution from the clues given, and right or wrong, when the
true answer comes, it makes some sense. This one not
so much. This is the kind of resolution that causes
one to think back upon things and ultimately invalidates
almost everything we've seen up until that point, thus
making the exercise a little pointless. And it also
has the misfortune of even forcing us to think ahead a bit
to things we aren't even going to see, because the movie is
off now, where you may think, due to this wacky conclusion,
that every single character, except maybe one, should be
doing time in jail. With this one being the alleged
worst character of them all, who as far as I can tell didn't
do anything against the law in this movie. Cheating on
your wife or sleeping with a friends wife or something along
those lines might not be cool, but it ain't necessarily
illegal and probably doesn't deserve the kind of justice
that was levied against this clown.
What this movie probably needed was a bit more sleaze and
nudity of which it is severely lacking. None of our
characters really took advantage of the loft except for Karl
Urban's character, which meant he could saved himself an
awful lot of trouble by just keeping it to himself.
Yes, the Mardsen character did use the loft for his tryst,
but then he was pledging undying love to this woman, so you
know, no sleaze there. And Rachael Taylor ain't even
trying to get naked in this movie. Not that we'd even
want to see Rachael Taylor naked until she gained about 25
pounds.
Not sure how the other versions of this movie shook out, but
in this version it sure looks like it would've benefited
from being just a straightforward murder mystery. No
twists, no shenanigans, no sleight of hand. Keep it
simple, keep it sleazy. We didn't get any of that.
