Director Eric Van Looy’s new thriller “The Loft” finds itself somewhere between “Gone Girl” and “50 Shades of Grey.” The major premise of the story creates a sturdy foundation of a typical movie in the genre. That being said, the film struggles to get off its feet until it draws in its audience through sheer desire to find the answer to the question thrillers always beg: Who did it?
The plot of the film revolves around five married men who decide that sharing a loft together will be the best way to help them carry out their affairs with minimal possibility of their wives discovering their dirty secrets. The intrigue of the story comes when unfortunate circumstances bring the men to try to solve a crime born in their lustful loft.
As previously mentioned, the movie fails to hit the ground running initially but reaches its peak of quality as the twists begin and the acting relaxes. Both the writing and the acting struggle to hit home in the movie’s first lines with the stars Karl Urban (“Star Trek”) and James Marsden (“X-Men”) being the main culprits of its difficulty.
Nevertheless, the intrigue and the nature of the genre keep the audience interested long enough for the movie to save itself by proving its competentcy through plot twists. While the dialogue is wildly predictable and the lines are tensely delivered in the opening half hour, these first thirty minutes or so possess great value to the film’s continuity and its success in foreshadowing.
The opening shot of the film leaves the audience aware of an additional tragedy in the loft (apart from the fatality that leads to the story itself). The plot’s ability to foreshadow without giving too much away is one of the biggest strengths of the movie. That strength is accompanied by a storyline that lends itself to a great deal of surprise, and believable, yet unexpected twists.
As is expected with a thriller, the story comes with the question of “who did it?” along with the inevitable presence of a twist. The middle third of the movie begins to stir the pot by presenting a number of potentially valuable pieces of insight, all of which keep the audience drawn in and seeking the answer to that omnipresent question. A secondary benefit of forcing the audience to focus on trying to resolve this question for themselves is a seemingly heightened level of comfort for the actors.
The actors thrive in the ending where their characters have become more defined. While the acting was not initially convincing due to what seemed to be a heavier burden on acting, the latter portion of the movie takes the focus off of delivery of written dialogue and places it on character development alongside a twisting, turning plot. The characters and actors seem to become more natural as foreshadowing comes to fruition, and the plot unravels.
Urban and Marsden come into their own, but the real showstoppers when it comes to acting are supporting actors Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”) and Matthias Schoenaerts (“The Drop”) who both succeed as somewhat secondary characters.
When all is said and done, “The Loft” succeeds to keep the audience engaged and interested in what will unfold but does not present anything that makes it stand above many other films of its genre.
