Dale Haufrect
Another loser is the 2009 film, "Duress" directed by Jordan Barker. It was written by Jim Kehoe and Dipo Oseni and is considered a thriller. However, it is not too thrilling of a picture. The actors include Martin Donovan, Sakis Rouvas, Joey Adams, Megan Ashley, Jacob Bertrand, Tommy Burwell, Desiree Cooper, Catherine Dent, Deon Derrico, Cristina Dohmen, Gina Gallego, Lisa Gady, Deege Harding, Chris Holz, George Ketsios, Cole S. McKay, Kathleen McNearmey, Alexis Raich, Chelsea Smith, Ariel Winter, Billy Wirth and Susan Spano. The story is that of a middle aged businessman who has a young daughter and who is blackmailed into a life of crime by a murderer who threatens the little girl's life if the father does not follow commands. It is a slow moving film and I found it hard pressed to give it only 2 stars. Dale Haufrect
Nname maddix
Where do I start...The way that the story makes it seem as though Richard is chosen at random in the beginning, then at the end you see that he was picked. The story in a whole was very good, its very psychological you have to really pay attention until the end. there is a lot of things that you don't notice, until the end. Like yes {spoiler alert} when Richard, put tommy Wilkins shirt on that hook, I didn't notice that at all when I first watched it. Also when shes playing with the remote control car and he asks where she gets it from and she says "tommy left it in the park" notice at the end, that they're in a park and tommy's in back when shes killing that bird and Armand was watching her. Didn't notice that either. Also, when he kills the detective and his wife mistaking the detectives wife as Armond's wife OH MY GOD. This movie was awesome. great acting great story you wont waste your time while watching this.
rlyonsii
I admit the main reason I watched this is because I am a giant nerd and was a fan of Ariel Winter because of Final Fantasy 13-2. I have seen Martin Donovon in many different things and he usually brought a little something to the table.I originally had this as a 4 because it seemed very straight forward as home terror movies have seemed to go as of late. I initially compared it to things like The Strangers, and You're Next. After the initial excitement it quickly winds down for me and it becomes what appears to be a very boring movie. I think they worked a little to hard at covering up the things they were trying to conceal, because the middle part of the movie did seem very slow.Without revealing to much there are a few twists in the end, one of which I think anyone can see miles away, and then something else happens which in the opinion of this writer, truly made the movie in a higher quality.All in all I think it is worth a watch, just drudge through the middle, and you will be rewarded!rlyonsii.net
pirateLyd
I watched this film expecting to be disappointed by Sakis Rouvas' inexperienced acting skills, but it turned out there were several more major flaws.Yes, Sakis' acting was stilted and it was only too obvious that he doesn't belong in the world of movies. I think most everyone not blinded by his looks or reputation as a singer will agree that he just can't pull off such a role. However, I was surprised by how flat Martin Donovan's portrayal of the character turned out to be. Though his confused and blank expression fitted some scenes, he hardly expressed the emotion that most of the film required and left me waiting for a peak that never came.Furthermore, the attempts of making the killer oh-so-elusive and fitting all the pieces of the puzzle together left some major holes in the plot. I won't go into details to avoid giving out spoilers, but it's safe to say I rolled my eyes one too many times at the poor explanations behind certain events.And yet the most important and, in my opinion, obvious problem of the film was the dialogue. I can't recall ever hearing more unnatural conversations in a movie before...especially Sakis' lines sounded like nothing anyone would say in reality. There are only so many times you can address another person by his name in a conversation, so once he started using "Richard" at least once in every sentence it didn't take long before I grew sick of hearing it.To be fair I must admit I found the ending quite appealing, in a disturbed sort of way...but the twist in the tale can't make up for all the negatives. If anything, I felt it had a lot of potential and it's a shame it wasn't the highlight of the much better film it deserved.Overall I found Duress to be a very mediocre production, with less-than-adequate acting and horrible dialogue. It's not that it didn't keep me interested, but the unreal feeling of it had me wince more than once. I believe the word that best describes this film is "awkward".
AD
