MOVIE REVIEWN - The Loft

The new release, The Loft is out this week. This is a really good example of taking a potentially interesting premise and not knowing what to do with it.

The Loft is a harsh, R rated flick about these 5 guys in the big city who are all really successful.  They are all married and all have a bunch of money.  They, (for some reason) decide to buy this wonderfully elaborate and totally secret loft in a new apartment building.  The whole idea is that this will be a retreat, and a place for these 5 guys to have their secret trysts with other women.  There will be total secrecy about this place between them. 

Then one day they find a dead woman in their loft, and since they are the are the only people that even know of their place, seems one of them had to have done it. But who?  They accuse each other, all the while trying to fool the cops about this murder.  And more importantly, who is this woman, and why is she even there?  It's a mystery of sorts, but the whole thing should have been better.

This has a nice ensemble cast and a fairly decent premise, but much of this is simply unpleasant.  These guys are all basically not very likable, and their marriages are all pretty horrible. This deals with extremely adult subject matter.   Much of The Loft is told in flashback form, and you weave between the now, and the then. Although, they can't really seem to make up their mind if they really want to commit to that. Also, it seems the story tellers can't seem to make up their minds as to actually did the crime.

The movies best scenes are the interrogation scenes by the police.  They seem to have the best flow and the most interesting dialogue, and are easily the best acted.   This has nice pace, and at times a really nice look, but there is simply too much hesitation by the writers trying to be so smart, it all starts to become jumbled and suffers loss of focus.  This is harsh and dark, and not light movie watching.  If you like watching grown up people problems on steroids, this is your flick.  If not, move along.

The Loft.  Ehh...