200 Degrees (2017)

Pretty Good

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

All I can say is that if the protagonist had been female, she would have almost immediately been stripped down to her underwear. This guy removes his jacket at the start and then remains fully clothed (socks and shoes included) all the way through. I can't get over the blatant double standards here - and before anyone thinks I'm being overly sensitive, we actually (completely unnecessarily) see tits! Incredible. The guy is in insane heat, gets soaked so is not only absolutely boiling but humid, and keeps all his clothes on. Then we see boobs because...? The woman could have had a bra on and we still would have known she was a prostitute.I'm so incensed by this aspect of the film alone that I was too distracted by my ire to concentrate properly. Relatively interesting concept ruined by unabashed hypocrisy. Points for the setting as I really hate the heat so it did make me go "oooooooo" quite a few times (of course followed by "what kind of absolute cretin wouldn't take some of those clothes off? Oh yes, one who's not being objectified").

I like minimalist motion pictures. This appears to be one of such a kind: one man, one room, a few other voices. A man, a broker, is locked up in an oven for a reason unknown, but a menacing voice demands from him one million dollars unless he becomes an overcooked tart. He does not have such the sum but is given time to find and transfer it.The man is not incommunicado - he has a phone and can call whoever he wants which includes his brother a cop, his mother, his business partners. What strikes the viewer during his phone talks is the tone of the voice of his interlocutors: strangely detached and disinterested, although help is offered.All hinged on what and how would be constructed on the basis of a not-too-original premise. Devilish disembodied voice taxing the trapped anti-hero, foreboding music created some tension and mysterious atmosphere. Unluckily, about 45 minutes into the movie the script runs out of ideas and sees no direction where it should go. The phone exchanges become sillier and sillier and even the "voice" veers from one unsubstantial comment to another.I guessed the ending half way through the film - the hero's family has arranged that whole ordeal for him - and I was wishing I would be proved wrong because then this might be something not quite worthless. But I was right and there the laughable closing coda disintegrates whatever of value was presented earlier.However, there is a little twist at the end: don't swindle a swindler.

Read above: S P O I L E R SThis is the whole story: guy (Ryan Hinds) wakes up shackled to a chair in an iron room that turns out to be an oven. His distraught, grief- stricken policeman brother (John) locked him there to milk him out of his money. After all, John's boy died of cancer because he was unable to tell Ryan that's why he needed money. So, it is Ryan's fault, of course.The room is metal. It has a very large electrical heating set hanging from the ceiling, a submarine-like door, a reinforced glass spy window and ventilation that can be turned open or shut.Ryan is something of a stock broker. The type Hollywood loves to demonize. He was at a party with his partner and 2 prostitutes (obviously...) at which both were severally abducted and taken to the oven rooms (one for each of them).The partner calls Ryan to ask for help as the heat in his oven gets turned on. We listen as he crisply dies. Then John, voice disguised by a modulator, demands one million dollars.The oven is made of iron. There's no way one could get a good signal in there - and Ryan should know it. However, there's a strong signal available, so Ryan calls his brother John on his iPhone7. Ryan doesn't know his whereabouts and, it seems, he also doesn't know how to find it through any maps app..... Oh....wait....John is in the precinct? Then how can he be talking to Ryan at the oven rooms warehouse? Simple! His good wife AND Ryan's own wife are there lending a helping hand....and killing Ryan's partner in the process.Well, left with no alternatives, Ryan starts transferring all his money to his captor's account. Including money from his dying father's health insurance. And conning the most of it from his clients. All through the phone. All at a moment's notice. And all with instant transfers. Ryan has such nice and gullible clients!When he is finished and the captor demands more, you can imagine poor Ryan's surprise....well, it turns out that the captor knows that Ryan has a 4 million stash in a different bank. They also know the account number and the password! So, Ryan goes on and obliges the captor - after all, it either that or going roast....Then they finally let him out and expose the charade. John's wife, not contented with the money, also shoots Ryan's wife. And only then notices that the money has been taken back....John notices things have gone south in a bad way. So, the logical decision is to shoot his own wife and try to make amends with Ryan.Ryan then manages (we don't see how but, at this point, who cares?) to get all the bodies and his brother locked into his old oven. He turns on the medium heat and leaves everybody to slow cooking as he walks away into the credits......Seriously, go watch anything else.....

Be prepared to spend 90 minutes on the edge of your seat. With excellent production, great casting, and a clever but nerve-wrecking plot, 200 Degrees will have you biting your nails on pins and needles. This thriller is chock full of suspense with twists and turns you will NEVER see coming. Balfour and Cochell give excellent deliveries that will have you anxiously sweating bullets and really feeling the heat.