The Killing Jar (2010)

Simply Perfect

Absolutely Fantastic

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

When I say Danny Trejo was going to be in this, I knew this movie wouldn't be very good. I don't know why people like him. His acting is not acting at all. It is like he is just yelling all the time with a stick up his butt. The acting by the others are okay. I think it is just the writing and directing by the director that made this movie a fail in my opinion. Not even 20 minutes into the movie and I was irritated by the writer's/director's inability to understand that showing something is stronger than having an actor follow up with the obvious. For example, the waitress is rubbing her temples which could only mean one thing, she has a headache. Well the male actor sitting next to her asks what's the matter when we can obviously tell she has a headache. Second, when the waitress gets in an altercation with a patron, Trejo, the cook and owner, waits until it is over to jump to his waitress's aid.Finding out who certain people are and the backstory is very good, but all the violence wasn't necessary. It just felt like it was thrown in. You never know why some people do the things they did and you still won't for the main shooter really. If you are into gory movies this is for you and if you like a good attempt at a plot this is it, but I wouldn't watch this again for most of the acting, or directing. Although the guy from lost was amazing in this movie!!

Horrible acting by lead actress, Amber Benson, as a put upon waitress of a diner that finds itself taken over by a gun-toting criminal. (not to mention Lew Temple who is just as atrocious as an over eager Keystone-esque cop) And while I didn't particularly care for writer/director Mark Young's startlingly mediocre previous film, "Tooth and Nail" (which I also reviewed by the way), it's still a better film than this one. Strictly stemming from the fact that that film possessed a modicum of atmosphere, something which this movie sadly lacks. No tension and the fact that I couldn't emphasis with any of the characters. So with utterly no emotional investment the film becomes stale and tedious long before it limps to it's ending.

Bad. Bad. No suspense. No tension. Graphic and gratuitous violence. Just dumb. Script sucked. Period. Michael Madsen - normally a fine actor - looks like he has no commitment to doing any real acting. He looks tired, bored, listless...apathetic. Hey Michael - you supposed to be an actor. You can't phone it in my friend. You gotta do more than just die your frock and stroll through the dialogue delivery.Just a joke of a film. Believe it or not - some of the actors were decent. Jake Busey can emote. So can the black dude. But what a bore. I guess it was hard to pull it off with such a low budget. I get it. I like low budget films - with some degree of sense. Not this brainless bore.

Any movie that boasts amongst its actors Michael Madsen, Danny Trejo, and Jake Busey definitely gets some points of merit even before the movie starts rolling. Though those points aren't as much as you might think, because Trejo's part is small and very insignificant, and Busey's role isn't that much better. I also had some other problems with the movie. The photography is pretty bad, with dark and muddy colors throughout. Also, the movie takes a LONG time to get going - more than a third of the movie goes by, to be more exact. Still, I will admit that once the movie gets going, the rest of the movie is fairly compelling - though I had a good idea of how the movie was going to end some time before that ending actually played out. So there aren't exactly any surprises to be found in this movie. However, I will admit that I have seen far worse direct-to-DVD movies.