Thriller has always been my favorite genre whether it is
books or movies. A well made one goes down smooth and really gives me the same
satisfaction as a glass of the best quality scotch. However, good pulse
pounders are more difficult to find than virgins in a whorehouse. Run of the
mill rip offs of the same old classics are ubiquitous and hence I consider it
my great fortune that I ended up seeing two pretty solid thrillers this
Saturday and Sunday.
Halle Berry is a call center respondent of L.A.P.D. She is
one of the many who work in the “hive”, which is L.A.P.D. argot for the call center, and answers when a 911 call is made. One
day a girl calls her telling her that an intruder has broken into her house.
Berry informs the nearest police squad about the same but through an unforeseen
error of her, the girl is lost. Berry takes it personally and stops responding
to “live” calls and becomes an instructor.
The story moves on to six months ahead. Berry has become an
instructor now and while guiding trainees through the floor, she helps a new
recruit who is responding to a call made by a girl who has been kidnapped and
making the call from the trunk of a car. Berry starts guiding the girl. Would
she be able to save this girl and exorcise her past?
This is an 88 minute long movie which has an ultimate first
70 minutes. The viewer is glued to the screen by a combination of believable
acting and plotting and terrific screenplay which does not let the attention
waver. You would find himself sympathizing and rooting for Berry and the
trapped girl. The last twenty minutes let my expectations down somewhat with Berry’s
rather fortuitous stumbling upon the lair of the killer.
This movie has some elements of the fantastic book “Intensity”
by Dean Koontz. In the book, a girl secretly boards a serial killer’s vehicle
after he has murdered all the members of her best friend’s family. Here, the
scenes in the trunk of the car are reminiscent of the same.
This might be Berry’s best performance in quite some time. It
is indisputably her biggest grossing movie of the 2010s. Made on a budget of 13
million, it earned 51 million.
Michael Eklund as the killer is vicious and made me squirm.
This is the best time I have had at movies in the month of
June. Do yourself a favor and watch this. It would excite you, make you shiver,
entertain you and leave just a wee bit disturbed. Just like a good thriller
ought to do.
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