Across the Hall (2009)

One of my all time favorites.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I can't believe this movie has such a low number of views and reviews.I came to this movie, because of Brittany Murphy, in fact it was the only movie of her I didn't see. Shame on the medias, for not giving it the publicity it deserves.As some wrote, this is an excellent Film Noir, it may have been better without color, but then the colors of an ancient hotel where nothing has been changed since its opening is just a very good choice. It gives a bit of Barton Fink feeling, though the plot is nowhere as crazy.The plot unfolds before us, not in a straight line of time in the beginning, and for an enjoyable while, you ask yourself, who knows what you know? Very clever.Some may critic a lack of action. But that's what makes this movie so great. There is a constant tension, and twist of minds, with very well depicted characters, who may or may not become an accomplice. Brilliant.And the end shows a final slow motion scene, maybe just to make fun of all the people who can't enjoy and stay awake, unless they are shot with constant action scenes.I was very tired late at night, when I started watching the movie, and I didn't think I could finish it.But I knew right from the start, this movie would be a little jewel, because the intro is first class, with excellent music too.And it even motivated me to write this review, straight after. That's the best compliment I can give.

One of those films, where the least said about the plot the better, so in an attempt to refrain from giving any spoilers I boil it down to one sentence. Julian (Mike Vogel) attempts to stop his best friend Terry (Danny Pino) from any making any rash choices after he follows his fiancée June (Brittany Murphy) rent a room at the River View hotel.Given the low IMDb ratings I didn't really expect much from this below-the-radar thriller. The movie itself is heavily influenced by two great directors. One of them is Alfred Hitchcock. The attempt at replicating the style of 50s and 60s thrillers is visibly apparent not only in the cinematographic style ripe with noir overhead shots, neons, stylisations and a need to push the suspense and tension ahead of action and cheap thrills. The whole movie itself if an old-fashioned hotel with a outdated bell-boy playing a key part in the build-up and story. Overflowing with a retro feel it becomes a stylish homage aimed at those who miss the good old days.On the other hand you can see the strong impact that Christopher Nolan has in updating the thriller genre and fully using the superior technical capabilities of modern film art to increase the mystery, growing tension and keep tabs on the plot. The whole story is expertly told in a non-linear fashion, where scenes from the past and present intermingle forcing you to logically put the pieces together (in a well-done mix-up of Innaritu storytelling and "Memento" type editing). Directed with swagger debutant Alex Merkin shows a lot of confidence and immense promise with the use of tools at his disposal.That said the movie does seem a tad overlong and given this was based on Merkin's short film it seems he essentially should have met somewhere in between at around 60-70 minutes. The movie tends to drag on incredibly as the script is pulled out in order to somehow reach a proper running time. The suspension drastically drops, although manages to get back on track with the final resolute bang of an ending. Basically a poster movie for the need to be able to be a bit shorter than the standard 90-120 minutes of the Hollywood 'full length feature'.Honestly the script itself is in the most part wildly predictable, as the movie is mostly pushed ahead thanks to its style, while not putting enough pressure on the story itself. The mismatch of the mediocre story and the overstretched plot almost derails the meticulous set-designed and claustrophobic noir feel to the movie.Acting creds are generally fine with Brad Greenquist as the Porter giving the best performance of the lot. All in all worth a watch and I could see Merkin making a name for himself given a script with actually can fill-up the required runtime.

This film is certainly the worst I have seen this year. Be prepared to try and slow your brain down to the pace of this film or risk trying to lick your own elbow to stop yourself thinking about what might't happen. To give the film some merit, the intro credits are fun, and its nice being in a spooky Hotel. Cue some post-teen transatlantic two dimensional Dawsons creek drop outs and we are off to a mediocre start. Oh wait there we don't really care about the characters, so if they die its all a bit of fun; Sorry to break this to you but hardly anyone dies. So we are left trying to figure out 'if that really happened then wouldn't it go a bit more like this...' until we realise that it would never ever happen and so why are we still watching when we have figured out the plot while the slow motion sequences fanny about to pretentiously ominous bass note "dun-dun dun-dun dun-dun." AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!!

I was completely caught off guard by this film. It has a great classic film/noir feel to it which is far too uncommon these days. That it was clearly accomplished on a smaller than Hollywood budget is all the more impressive. The pacing is steady and deliberate which may throw some viewers off, but there is so much texture and richness to each scene that you have the opportunity to really take it all in and feel/experience the mood and atmosphere, unlike most movies in this genre (think Mad Men, one of the best shows on TV, in this respect). The acting, cinematography, music, lighting and direction are across the board very impressive. I started watching thinking I would only sit through about 20 mins or so, but I was totally compelled to watch the entire thing (twice actually!) and found myself incredibly engaged. In terms of story and twists, I quite enjoyed the way the structure of the film really didn't cheat or force these elements. Upon the second viewing I found really interesting clues that would have allowed me to figure things out the first time if I had noticed them then (pay attention to expressions, time of day and even the drink glasses in the film). The plot and story is very tightly woven together. Its easy to dismiss some of these things as cheap or devisive but thats a lazy criticism. They are clearly carefully crafted and not just thrown in there.I hope to see this film hit theaters soon as I would love to experience it on the big screen. There are shades of Hitchcock and Kubrick that really excite me about a project like this. I don't know that its actually a 10, maybe an 8 or 9 (who knows?), but film efforts like this deserve major praise and hopefully this one will gain major momentum. Kudos to the creative team for bringing a smart, non effects-driven, character based thriller to creation. This is excellent work.