Not that I ever do but I haven’t done much any research on this thing and I don’t know if this is well liked or not but I thought this was really sucky and man what a big step backwards here for Hartnett and Shyamalan. Maybe people love it and I am wrong as usual but jeez i almost felt like this was some sort of inside joke or something like Shyamalan was drinking wine with his friends or investors and things were getting sloppy or something and maybe they were drinking that Greek Ouzo shit and getting loopy and someone said hey man i was at the airport the other day and someone started patting me down and i was all hey i’ll give you ten minutes to get your hand off my crotch and Night said hey that gives me an idea i bet i can make a movie where no security guard or police force or even the FBI stationed in Pennsylvania can catch a serial killer even if he kidnaps a superstar singer because he’s charismatic you see and get this – they’re all so fucking stupid and they all snort and slap the table and their knees and toast and collectively say HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHHAHHAHHHA stupid police and chew some toast points covered with foie gras and and slurp down some oysters and as they head to his 4,200 square foot guest bedroom for a massive and sweaty orgy he says you know maybe this a super flimsy idea so i’ll put Josh Hartnett in it because he’s hot with the people right now and that’ll really get some asses in seats and as the party commences all around and in him on and around his 5,000 thread count sheets he thinks yeah man this’ll be the one hahah stupid fuckers they only thought The Happening was bad.

Or something, I don’t know I wasn’t there but this thing – I felt – was so *ahem – insipid that I can’t even think of anything I Liked about it. **SPOLIER** I think what really did me in here was towards the end when he’s been caught and being lead out of his house and he’s surely going to face the death sentence for his crimes and he wants to stop and solemnly and regretfully pick up his daughter’s bike off the ground to show how caring he is or something and the contingent of police just let him despite all of his shackles and murders i was thinking ok this guy’s so well planned ahead that he planted a handcuff key or some kind of tool he could slip somewhere and help him out if the time came but no, they gently place him in the armored car and he pulls a bicycle wheel spoke out of his shirt sleeve to unshackle himself. Has Shyamalan ever ridden a bike? Maybe not but that’s not something you can just bend over and pull off of a wheel in a couple of seconds with no one ever noticing and no matter what had happened earlier in the movie all of my hopes were lost and too bad that was the closing segment there. I mean I just thought that was a real load of hot crap in an already hot crappy bag full of hot crap.

Are you familiar with this movie? Now wait I want to say I like most of Shyamalan’s movies except for The Happening and I thought The Visit was kind of lame and I didn’t see Last Airbender or the one with Will Smith’s douchey kid but I’ve liked Old and Knock at the Cabin and Split and Glass until the end – Bruce Willis didn’t deserve that – and blah blah blah but man this thing stink. I also meant to write stunk but “man this thing stink” works much better for me.

Back to the story – Hartnett is the super nice and smarmy cool dad I guess many people wish they had growing up sheee-it he’s taking his young teenage daughter to a young teenage pop star’s concert and they give it up early that he’s got someone tied up in a basement because he’s a deranged serial killer on the side and they maybe or maybe don’t allude to how he likes to cook omelets and roll up his own sausage in it and parade around the house like some hot dog vendor yelling “who wants a California omelet??”

So if you’re not familiar, the concert is the trap, where Pennsylvania’s finest police in league with the FBI and their scholarlyest profiler will catch the killer that’s been going around committing murder all over the place. Do we ever see such murderiest murders? No this is very very very tame and includes no sign of the scariest scares. At one point our man does take off his shirt for an extended period of time for no real reason I could see but if you’re looking for Hartnett’s boobiest chest – you’re in luck. During this half nude sequence he does pick up a meat cleaver and wields it around but, if you didn’t see it coming because you’re the smartiest, his wife has poisoned his pie with only the slightest of distractions and sadly, he’s tripping his balls off and unable to do any cleaviest cleavings but luckily enough the poison doesn’t prove to be strong enough to keep him from breaking metal into two pieces in a split second with just the touch of his strengthiest fingers. That would kind of be like him ripping a phone book in half with one hand in a matter of two seconds with no one noticing. I call real bullshit on that. Real bullshit. Like the realest kind.

Did I mention that, facing sure doom, he weasels his way out of the concert by telling the big superstar singer girl that if she doesn’t take him and his daughter out of there in her giant limo he’ll kill someone so she does and no one even notices or cares that superstar lady girl singer with billions of fans and screaming girls around slowly walks out of the concert venue with a couple of plain schmucks and no one cares or even asks what’s up? I don’t know if this is a good analogy because I am in no way cool or hip but that seems like me going to a Taylor Swift concert and her and I leaving to get a beer and play darts at the bar down the street and no one noticing or being all ‘hey what is she doing with that plain and ordinary guy over there and why are they holding each others butts” and “is he wearing some sort of blue jeans” and “hey uh he looks like um her granddaddy um ok like huh”. I don’t even like or even know any of her songs so it would probably be more like i was leaving with Carly Simon. Or maybe even more like the concept of me leaving with the voice of the lady who duets in The Handsome Family songs.

Now granted, I’ve never been to a teenage pop star music concert. Back when I used to go to concerts – this was some time ago – we went to things like Motely Crue and Ozzy Osbourne and Def Leppard and Tool and Metallica and those weren’t really places where I would think I would leave my teenage daughter alone for untold periods of time while I cased out the venue for a way to escape. One time I did go to a Charlie Daniels show and it was completely different than those others obviously. I remember we got in there and got our seats and down on the floor some people were tossing a beach ball around and I was all “what is this place” but I remember it being fun. Now that I’m old the last concert I went to was Neil Diamond if that tells you anything.

I think that’s all i have for this – I didn’t love it and hope they all do better things next time.

FILED UNDER: MAN THIS THING STINK