Deron Generally
Deron Generally
10X10
Unstoppable Entertainment
Starring: Luke Evans, Kelly Reilly, Noel Clarke, Olivia Chenery, Jason Maza
Directed by Suzi Ewing
The first ten minutes of 10X10 have the makings of almost every other thriller you can think of from the last ten years. The music is sufficiently tense, the female lead is oblivious and the male lead is menacing. Then the first implausible thing happens that took me out of the film when he gags her, binds her hands and legs and walks away to get his car. I get the feeling that this was meant to show that Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast, The Fate of the Furious) character Lewis is inexperienced, but it’s distracting.
Lewis makes his way home and decides to pull Kelly Reilly’s (Sherlock Holmes, True Detective) Cathy out of the trunk and lock her in a 10X10 foot room hidden in the walls of his home. What follows is a series of near escapes by Cathy with Lewis asking her over and over again what her name is, implying that he knows something about her that we don’t. When the reasons behind Lewis’ abduction of Cathy come out, it actually adds some interesting tension to the film, especially if you see the subtle changes in Cathy’s behavior and demeanor. In those moments, she becomes more menacing than Lewis.
When all of the artifice is pulled away, the story gets really interesting. Reilly is amazing as Cathy. Her arc in this movie is worth watching. She commands the role and every scene she’s in. Evans is good as Lewis, but he isn’t given a lot to work with and I wanted to see more from him than reaction. It isn’t until the end of the film that I got a sense he had some kind of plan and by then it was almost too late considering what Cathy does to try to escape.
The circumstances that follow are actually pretty good. I enjoyed the ending a lot. There was some great palpable tension in the final confrontation between the two when all of the questions are finally answered. This was a really good thriller when it actually got moving.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCcMB2Rd98g&w=560&h=315]
