ATM (2012)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Just perfect...

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

How can there people not be able to overtake one single man?? Really?

ATM has a story that is half-original, there's loads of movies about a mysterious person messing with other people, but what makes this half- original is the setting, it's rare that a film features people stuck in an ATM cubicle, also there is literally only a few cast members which makes a change, it proves that a cine doesn't have to have tons of characters for the story to be enthralling.Here we have three main characters "David Hargrove" (Brian Geraghty), "Corey Thompson" (Josh Peck), "Emily Brandt" (Alice Eve), all three are accountant co-workers who drive home late from an office Christmas party, we see that "David" is passive in personality, and "Corey" bosses him around to an extent. "Corey" aggressively urges "David" to stop at an ATM so that "Corey" can get some money to buy a pizza at a late night restaurant, grudgingly "David" agrees, they both go into an ATM, "Emily" clearly feels uncomfortable waiting in the car by herself, so she joins them, soon enough a strange man in a parka coat stands outside the ATM staring at them, they try to communicate with him, he doesn't communicate back, they are scared of this mysterious man and their fears are heightened when the mysterious man kills a guy for no reason.The majority of the film focuses on the three co-workers trying to get out of the ATM in different ways while the killer is still hanging around.The film score composed by David Buckley is perfect, it has that chilly vibe which suits the movie due to it being set at wintertime at around two o clock and onward in the morning.The performances are natural, they portray the mixed emotions of fear, anger and frustration very well.There is a kind of twist in the movie where a person is mistaken for another person and the situation results in tragedy, that twist is unexpected.We see that "David" eventually starts sticking up for himself against his pushy co-worker "Corey", but it's all a little too late, that attitude would have been better back in the car when "Corey" was constantly on "David's" behind about getting food at two in the morning.The motivation of the killer is simple, he is sick and twisted and likes to play psychological games, we also see that he manipulates the ATM cameras to set people up.You can't help but think while watching this movie that the three of them should toughen up and leave that ATM at the same time, the mysterious person did not have a gun and it would be impossible to attack all three of them at the very same time, unless he is some martial arts trained black-belt which doesn't seem to be the case.ATM becomes less interesting when "Corey" is killed off, after that the movie is still watchable because you want to know what happens next, but it isn't as interesting. Even though "Corey" is a jerk, he brings a trait to the movie that has you wanting to keep watching, three characters are fine, any less than that and the movie doesn't have the same interesting factor.ATM is labelled as a horror, but it is actually a psychological chiller, there is not enough murder scenes for it to be a horror, the murder scenes are difficult to watch, but the movie is much more than that, horror always focuses on the killing, whereas this movie is more psychological due to the killer's motives. ATM is also a chiller because it gives you chills down your spine about this mysterious person, you can't help but think at first "why is he doing this?" "Is this something that he's done more than once?" - that is the chiller aspect because we don't know anything about the killer until the very end of the movie.

To be fair, I saw this after a season of Hannibal, so "ATM" was up against some fairly stiff competition, which it met flaccidly, at best.I've seen that this was apparently made on a $3m budget (and it shows), so perhaps my criticism should take that into account. Nonetheless, I kept thinking this film was a comedy-satire and waiting for the signs of that genre, to no avail.The plot is simplistic bordering on simple-minded, with any semblance of suspense barely managing to limp along in the background. Guys, it's possible to squeeze cheap thrills out of a shoe-string budget, as the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises have shown. The dialogue is so poor that at several points I had the impression the actors (I use the term loosely) were ad-libbing, and the characters they portray are correspondingly flat, unsympathetic and forgettable, such that you find yourself hoping that the bad guy hurries up and dispatches them all with his crowbar, to put the viewers out of their misery.The cinematography is minimalist. At least, I assume that was the desired effect. It actually just looks amateurish and static, as though the camera crew is frozen to the spot by the same sub-zero temperatures they contrive to have us believe the characters are suffering.Perhaps if the producers understood suspension of disbelief as a courtesy the viewer extends to them, and not as an infinitely exploitable resource that compensates for an offering that can only be described as anemic, then I'd be inclined to be more lenient. As it stands, "ATM" is trite, poorly done by everyone, and ultimately either disappointing or insulting, depending on how low your standards are.

'ATM' tells us about three people stuck in a kind of phone booth with a cash machine. A killer is lurking outside on the dark yard, so they dare not leave the booth. The most clever thing to do would be leaving the booth and split. If they ran into three different directions, the killer could catch only one, while the other two do get away to call the police. Agreed, that is bad for the one who is caught, but staying inside the booth until he kills all three is definitely the worst solution. Sorry I don't get around * spoilers * when discussing the movie, but to the obvious annoyance of the audience, they go for the worst solution, and that explains the low marks: credibility goes out of the window which is a pity, because otherwise it's a well acted dark little thriller.I especially liked the ending when the pictures from the surveillance cameras are shown. They seem to prove that one of three victims was the killer, and this is a brilliant way of demonstrating the importance of camera angles and editing. What a slim line between truth and error, and that makes you wonder how often pictures from surveillance cameras are rather misleading than clarifying in crime cases. Food for thought like I have not seen before in another thriller. They should have spent the same thoughtfulness on the killer's concept and motivation instead of relying on accidents.I see why many people disliked the movie very much. However, since I liked the 3 main characters and the creative ending, I give it 5 of 10 which translates as 'worth watching once' at least.