Panic Button (2011)

How sad is this?

Excellent but underrated film

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

First off Scarlett Alice Johnson is not the same as Scarlett Johansson.Four young adults win a trip to NYC from a social networking web site. On board the plane they take part in a game, which quickly grows uncomfortable and has deadly consequences for mistakes. Dave is obnoxious and we learn likes kiddie porn and is a hot head. Jo is an alcoholic. Gwen is still a virgin and Max is a liar.You have an unseen man with a voice distorter barking out orders. Jo is set up as the "Final Girl" as she is the only one we see before the airport. The film is fairly easy to predict...what task would you have a virgin do? Guide: F-word. Sex. No nudity.

If I had read the reviews here beforehand, I probably would not have watched this movie. Usually, I read the External Reviews first, especially sites that I go to most for Genre films, and in this case I unfortunately did not get from them that this was so similar in tone and theme to the 'SAW' films, of which I have absolutely NO interest.Like almost everyone here has said in their summaries and reviews, the IDEA was pretty good and intriguing and I was genuinely interested to see what they would do with such a premise. But, although they pulled it off for about the first 45 minutes or so pretty well, after that point in just basically degenerated into a mental torture test. I won't give too much away even though I have checked the possible Spoilers box (something that I rarely do) but in my lowly and wretched opinion, if they had just taken the film in another direction, ANYTHING else, to give it more depth and dimension other than just some entity clearly trying to torture them mentally and forcing them into generic impossible 'SAW'-like situations of having to do something nasty or suffer the consequences, then it certainly could have been more interesting. At about this point in the film, for the next 10-15 minutes, the focus was simply showing how distressed everyone was and their constant crying, begging, and pleading, and not much else... It got REAL old, REAL fast.For me personally, I have NO interest in just seeing people suffer for the sake of suffering. Don't like it. Don't want to see it. In THIS case, the torture was pretty much mostly mental, except the brief excerpts that they showed on the monitors of what was happening to others. So, when it became apparent to me at about this point in the movie that all they were harping on was the continuous suffering of the people on the plane, I just lost all interest because the story wasn't really going anywhere. If they just hadn't KEPT harping on that repetitive one-note thing and actually taken the story in a much more interesting direction, then despite the distasteful elements so far, I think I would have been a LOT more inclined to want to see what was going to happen. But, that just wasn't the case.The acting was actually not too bad considering the high emotions and usually how actors in scenes like that in films like this tend to overdo it or do a really bad job of it. And the personality types of the individuals were not so caricatured and shallow as they usually are, and actually came across as somewhat REAL people, so there is that... But ultimately, the film makers were only interested in showing the suffering of the people, as if THAT alone was the primary entertainment. But, sorry... that just ain't my thing. What I feel would have HUGELY improved the film would be if they had at about the 45 minute mark where things were getting pretty serious and the people were beginning to realize that this was no 'game', at THAT exact point if they had concentrated the story on how the people could have used their wits and tried to come up with some plan to get out of their situation, then THAT would have kept my interest and shifted the focus off of all the unpleasantness. But, no... they just kept dragging it out, minute by minute, repetitively doing the SAME thing with each person, dragging them into the bathroom, forcing them to put on the headphones, and telling them what awful things they had to do. Just dumb... To me it seemed that there had already been PLENTY of that and the audience already bloody KNEW the seriousness of the situation. So, to me, LOGICALLY at that point it would seem that the audience would be getting a little impatient and thinking, 'Okay, now how the hell are they going to get out of this...?' So, after about 15 more straight minutes of crying, pleading, begging, and suffering, I had pretty much had it with this film.So, all I can say is, if that is your idea of a good time, watching a group of people being mentally distressed and tortured, then sure, go for it. And yeah, the point WAS being made about Social Media and all that, fine... But, a movie is a movie, and either it is a GOOD movie or a BAD movie (usually something in between...) In this case I felt that it started off very well, and then became a BAD movie...It's a shame that it turned out to be so disappointing. With such an intriguing premise, they really should have come up with something far better...

This film had potential, the grievances from Rupert Turner are more than understandable and it points out some plausible problems with the ever growing social media. But it was a awful film. The acting made me want to punch myself in the face and eventually the direction of the film coincidentally plummeted to the earth.When reading the description i was intrigued, and sat down hoping for a little surprise; like something along the lines of "Tower Block" which was also a British low budget film. Well i did end up being surprised...at how bad this film was. I understand it's hard to make an impact with such a low budget, but to settle for such unconvincing actors isn't mandatory. If they cast 4 better actors this could have been a fairly good film, but they didn't. They are annoying, extremely annoying. And it's not the characters that frustrated me, but the actors themselves and their inability to truly make me believe they where in such a situation.As i said it could've been a good film, but unless you're a movie fanatic like myself then i wouldn't bother wasting my time.

"Interesting" as another reviewer put it. But kind of worn out too. You wish they'd actually care about the characters they write or portray. It feels very unnatural and very cliché (especially towards the ending) and does not really get you involved. And it started out so good. You have no idea who those guys and the tension gets almost unbearable at the beginning.But all that doesn't matter in the end. Because the movie throws any logic out the window (no pun intended) and tries to stick with a known formula. It doesn't work out that good for the movie. While not the worst movie, you have to be a fan of the genre to take the time to watch this.