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This film sounded interesting. It promised a soundtrack featuring Oates and Hall (I know the common usage dictates that Hall comes first in a listing of their names as one entity, but who are we kidding? Everyone with a shred of common sense and integrity knows that it was Oates that carried them, Oates with the coattails ridden by Hall. Oates, I tell you! OATES!) and other such poppy hits, as well as what could be an interesting character study of a woman who can't stand to be alone suddenly forced to spend months confined to her apartment. I should have realized that when a film's hype contains heavy mention of its soundtrack, there is something amiss. Zoe (Robin Tunney) is a bit of a nerd who tends to be a little overly social to the point of driving people away, but she can't handle being alone in her apartment, so she's driven to go out and do things. When her dream guy (Priestley) actually asks her out because he secretly pegs her as an easy lay, she gets a bit blitzed, and then she goes to her car for something only to find herself hijacked by a jackass in the front seat that forces her to run over a cop. So as she awaits her trial, she's locked with an ankle bracelet so she can't leave her new apartment, which drives her nuts. The only people she steadily has for company is the semi-friendly ankle-bracelet guy (Nelson) who's slowly falling for her and the gay crippled dwarf downstairs that makes bad first impressions.
It seems as though director Finn Taylor had a decent idea that he wanted to follow up on, but wasn't sure how to end it, so he decides to make it into "Run Lola Run" by suddenly turning it into a "pulse-pounding thriller." Unfortunately, it never quite works, and it doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, leaving you with a 'well, that was ridiculous' sort of feeling (I do tend to judge a lot of movies by the feeling it left me with when the credits rolled). Maybe that's the point - when we've got a stalker using "Private Eyes" as his theme song, maybe we're supposed to keep thinking 'this is all silly fun,' but I, for one, was never completely taken on a roller-coaster ride of laughs and laments. Ah, well.
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