Choose (2011) Deservedly Short Review
The worst movie I’ve seen for 2011. I don’t know if I can remember a film where there was this sordid combination of terrible acting and unlikeable characters speaking brain-dead dialogue. I usually blame the director, but I think the actors and the writer deserve plenty of blame. also. The film’s story was a weird combination of Grrrrirl Power(!) and the all knowing/all seeing/all powerful serial killer film. Some of this was stolen from other crap horror films like the unholy Saw franchise and better films like the vastly superior Se7en.
There is a weak attempt here to throw in a twist at the end, probably because the filmmakers knew they had nothing up to that point. The fact that the true/other killer that turns up has already had his @$$ kicked by the protagonist earlier in the film (with one shot, mind you) ends the film on as limp a note as I have ever seen in any open ended horror film. But the acting… Wow.
Either the script or the director must have called for Fiona Wagner, the protagonist played by Katheryn Winnick, to be perpetually at ‘that time of the month’, because she’s as unlikeable a female protagonist as I’ve seen in a horror film. Being a bitch to EVERYONE in the film (except for that one guy with a bar code reader) is not going to endear you to the audience. And on a side note, bar code reading phone apps are common nowadays. That’s what passed for cerebral here… And the Dewey decimal System. Even Kevin Pollak, who I’ve liked since he appeared on MTV’s Half Hour Comedy Hour as a stand up comedian, is terrible in this. That his daughter is so intellectually superior to him and the entire police force doesn’t help. And THEN, when you think it can’t get any worse, the King of Bad Acting (see “Silent Running” or just about ANY of his other films if you need more masochistic evidence), Bruce Dern turns up.
Just a terrible, TERRIBLE movie.If I ever have to CHOOSE between watching this again and having someone take a lawn mower to my face, I’m going with the lawn mower. Much less painful. This gets a half star and it only gets that because of the cinematography,. But with the quality cameras now available at next to nothing prices (for cameras anyway), what movie ISN’T shot with decent cinematography? A burning butt rash of a movie.
