Removal

source: Removal

Psychological thriller from 2010. The film is about the psychological tides of a man. Actually, almost everything is predictable, but I don't think it's a bad movie. As for his story, a man goes to his house when his friend calls him and sees that the man has killed his wife and child, and the last killer himself commits suicide. Then this man starts to have psychological problems and he is at odds with his family. Below will be points with spoilers. The killer and his friend are actually the same men, and his other character, who is a cleaner, wakes up when he doesn't take medicine for it. The movie reminded me of "Season 9" and "Identity". I really like this kind of movies. There is one open point in the movie. How did this man get away with that murder charge? There is no sex or nudity in the movie.

Right from the get go. Let's create a movie where everything is just mocked up/imagined/ false.... Nothing actually happened. I've seen really strong movies (identity 9/10) where a similar approach was embedded into a fascinating, twisted and dark journey. Not here, here it falls flat and left me betrayed and disappointed.

REMOVAL is your standard psychological thriller set in a dark and sprawling old house. The main character is a cleaner who soon discovers his new place of work has some dark and disturbing murderous secrets to hide. While I appreciate that the filmmakers went out of their way to shoot something other than your bog standard CGI ghost film, the problem with REMOVAL is its familiarity. That, and the fact that protagonist Mark Kelly just isn't a very interesting actor. This is a film which thinks it is far more original and cleverly-written than it really is. I could name one or two obvious inspirations on the story but I won't as these would give the game away. Let's just say that the film should have given thanks to those movies in the end credits. What we have in REMOVAL is your typical low budget filmmaking, a just-about-adequate type of movie that never really grips or blows you away as it should. It does feel very talky and bogged down in places. The cast features TWILIGHT's Billy Burke, a cameoing Elliott Gould playing a psychiatrist, and a big role for Oz Perkins (son of Anthony). Kelly Brook is here too, and the quality of her acting doesn't seem to have improved with the passage of time.

The soundtrack is just noise in the background that doesn't fit with the movie! This isn't a movie with Billy Burke. He's only in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Oz Perkins is a really bad, over-the-top actor. I'm sorry I paid to see this movie. What a disappointment!

Rather lame "suspense" film that is made on the laughably optimistic assumption that the film-makers can flat-out lie to you for an hour, and I mean completely lie about everything, but then pull out the goofy Oh You Had It All Wrong card, and actually get away with it. What I mean is that the first hour is basically all horse manure. None if it happened as shown. We find out instead that: 1. Burke never existed. 2. Kelly is actually Burke and it's Kelly who killed his family. (When? We have no clue, considering that even the "one year later" caption may have been a lie. That's what happens with liars: once caught, nobody ever believes them.) 3. Perkins isn't a killer. Hell, Perkins isn't even a rude yuppie! Even his absurdly confrontational attitude was imagined by Kelly! It appears that Perkins had been speaking normally all along. In other words, the writers and the director gave us ZIP truth in the first hour. 4. I guess this means Gould is fictional too. The scene at the shrink's office? BS too. 5. Everything in the first hour is just a vague, false, blurry, fictionalized version of what really transpired. But hey, "we had the decency to tell you that after an hour, so we're in the clear. Right, audience?" "You've been lied to, audience. Nice one, huh? How ingenious we film-makers are. We don't even have to set up a REAL mystery anymore. We can now build a mystery based on deceit, misinformation and lies. We tell you lies - and then at the end we admit we were lying and be generous enough to tell you the real plot. Clever, huh?" Not really. Using this dumb shtick I guess you could play a sci-fi movie with monsters to your audience for an hour - but then suddenly switch to a costume drama, saying that it was all a dream by some 18th-century child. Clever, huh? Not so much clever as just plain dumb. Not to mention easy to write. A movie can withhold information, yes. It can try to confuse you a bit, yes. It can challenge your perception of what's going on, yes. But what it can't do is mislead you about every single thing/aspect, for an HOUR, then expect the audience to be awed by this "amazing" twist. Any moron can set up a "story" like that. Deceit is easy. A proper twist exists within what the viewer knows, not within a movie that is never shown. I wasn't awed, I found it laughable. If you lie to me about everything, then what chance do I have? If I can't trust the first hour why would I trust the last 30 minutes either? To exacerbate things, the plot moves far too slowly. We even have extended, pointless scenes of Kelly sweeping floors while entire songs play in the background. Like MTV throwing clips into a movie. Hipster indie rock, which makes it far worse. Horrible crap that doesn't even suit the tone of the movie. Oz Perkins, one of the writers, had already shown that he doesn't have a penchant for writing with his "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House". That movie is stylish but its content is one big drawn-out cop-out with no resolution. This time the resolution is based on laughable, previous lies. Oz is of course a nepotist, son of that awful over-actor, the nerd from "Psycho", and in fact Oz is not even one of the really bad nepotists. His exaggerated portrayal of a narcissistic yuppie here is ludicrous but at least he looks the part. And since Kelly imagined everything, he had an excuse to be over-the-top. A flimsy excuse, but still an excuse. He just needs to stay away from writing - because a good writer isn't created simply by being born into a powerful Hollywood clan.

Directed and co-written by Nick Simon, this unpredictable chiller is one of the best films I have seen for a very long time. Part of the joy of watching this is being completely wrong-footed at every turn by the winding narrative and deceptively humorous moments that prove to be very dark indeed. The strength lies in three main players who absolutely sell the growing weirdness of the premise, while Simon's plot, while playing with audience perceptions, always makes sense. As nice guy and industrial carpet cleaner Cole, Mark Kelly excels - worked to the limit and always a slave to his medication, he desperately tries to win back the affections of his wife (Emma Caulfield). He is brazenly exploited by top-class elitist Henry Sharpe (Oz Perkins), who emotionally blackmails him into to working overnight and then casually appears to avoid payment, when Cole is clearly in need of the money. Such manipulation is bad enough, but it is coupled with regular drunken put-downs - but such is Perkins' skill, this grotesque character is actually quite funny too. Eric Kershe (Billy Burke) provides further obfuscation to the truth of matters, again walking the tightrope between being sinister and teasing the black humour out of the script. Also not quite as she may seem is bratty British Kirby, played by Kelly Brook. The revelations that are gently revealed at the end are all delicious. I'll spoil things no more than that. If you, like me, want to watch something compelling, different, and that will twist your brain slightly (in a good way), then 'Removal' comes massively recommended. I think you'll love it. My score is 9 out of 10.

The movie starts out with a man on prescription meds getting laid off from work. The next day he is involved in an awkward murder/suicide witnessed by Cole. We then cue credits. Cole (Mark Kelly) is now on prescription meds to prevent hallucinations. He works for a floor cleaning outfit and his condition has alienated him from his family. After working a week of doubles a tired worn out Cole is offered a job to clean a rich man's floors for an additional $5,000 under the table. Thinking of his wife and child, Cole reluctantly takes the job, cleaning floors to a decent soundtrack while having flashbacks to times with his family...and the murder/suicide. Oz Perkins plays Henry Sharpe, the odd man whose house Cole cleans. There are hints that Henry has murdered his family...the flashbacks get more intense as the film progresses. Enjoyable film. Good psycho-thriller. F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

I'm not really a fan for a movie this type. So, I give it a 5 for neutral. The twisting plot is so awesome. It's like I've been thinking the whole time what the hell is actually happened? And wanted to know how the ending's gonna be. Well, at least the ending told the whole story. But, what's weird though is how the two-characters talk to each other. It doesn't seem like he was talking to himself. More like a real conversation to another guy. That's not how hallucination looks like. Yeah, i know he created another identity for himself so that he can cover up what he had done from the past, but it doesn't looks right. The characters should be played differently. As i don't really likes psycho movie, so I can say the movie wasn't so bad, and not so good. Just average. Note: I do a lot of fast forward while watching this movie. :)

If NOT for the fantastic performance from Mark Kelly playing cleaner Cole Hindin (it helped that I had a huge crush on him during this, but that didn't alter my review), some good cinematography and a great soundtrack/score, 'Removal' (5/10) would be a complete waste. Why? Well, I can't say without spoiling the movie's over-used "secret" that I almost missed. I'll be honest, I usually see this coming, and I did kinda get it through the movie with the numerous clues. Part of the problem was the enormously bad acting from the movie's homeowner, Henry Sharpe (Oz Perkins). In fact, it was so obviously bad, you knew something was up. That said, again, Mark did such a good job, you'd think you were watching a Class A movie vs. the B-movie it was. It's worth a rental if you like those suspenseful (lite) thinkers involving a recovering and separated man, Cole, who witnessed his best friend, Eric, kill himself following Eric killing his own wife. Time has passed and now Cole's being summoned to conduct a solo yet "3-Person" cleaning job at a massive mansion overnight. Cole's suspicious of the owner's secretive nature regarding the quick/quiet job and the weird disappearance of his own wife. See it on the cheap.