celr Paul is a dis-likable young man with a plan. His mother can't afford her medication (doesn't Canada have nationalized heath care?) and they're repossessing her house. He needs money right away. He hatches a complex kidnapping plan which is supposed to be brilliant, but which is, in fact, fairly stupid. Only the intervention of the script writers allows this plan to succeed in the end. *SPOILERS*Paul recruits two psychopathic morons to assist him in his crime. Together they kidnap three adult children of some rather shady rich guys and demand a million from each parent be transferred to an offshore account. The old rich guys are obviously corrupt, though what business they're in isn't clear. These old miscreants are played by some well-known and accomplished actors, but the actors playing the young kidnappers are not so good. Anyway, as criminals they continue to make stupid mistakes, leaving fingerprints, making calls and just doing stupid things. Other reviews here have listed some of the blunders these idiots make which in the real world would land them in prison in a New York minute. Our protagonist doesn't intend for his accomplices to come out of it alive and he kills one of them personally. The girl accomplice gets kicked to death by the boy accomplice for no reason except he's a homicidal maniac. Among other contradictions is the improbability that two escaped hostages would be able to hike several miles through dense woods at night or that the ill-fated sidekicks would be able to track them. Then we come to a hole in the plot big enough to drive a minor asteroid through: after money has been transferred to the offshore account Paul calls up the fathers and tells them their children are free (actually one is already dead and two have escaped) and just not to make any phone calls or answer the phone for the next hour or so. So the dim-witted dads just sit there and don't answer the phone for the next hour as the surviving children desperately attempt to call. And of course they don't phone the police. What? These guys are supposed to be smart, though crooked, businessmen. Doesn't it occur to them that there's no possible way the kidnapper could know if they're using the phone? They don't even look at caller ID to see who's calling them! This is almost a credible thriller, if you park your brain at the door, but the ending is abysmal. Paul, the mastermind of the kidnapping, is supposed to be the entitled one, you see. He deserves the money because rich guys are always corrupt and he needs it more than they do. So in the end he gets away with 2 million and he's supposed to be the hero because he had such a smart plan. He only committed enough felonies to get life in prison. He murdered his friend and engineered a kidnapping, but he's supposed to be the hero, despite the fact that's he's an extremely unlikable pratt. Somebody in these review pages suggested that this was a right-wing scenario. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is pure leftist, entitled generation, narcissistic nonsense. "Occupiers" will love it because it sticks it to the rich guys, I mean, Paul represents the 99%, one of the liberals' beloved victims who isn't doing it out of greed but to obtain justice for his ailing mom and see that the rich bastards pay their fair share. Isn't 'social justice' what it's all about?

Kari The main issue that I have with this movie is that it tries to be incredibly smart; when in fact, it skates over a lot of the lose ends that left me feeling Paul would never get away with this crime in the real world. Maybe, 20 or 30 years ago before forensic evidence practices and knowledge of the human psyche were not so abundant among the general population this movie would have looked smart. Hence, this movie tries to portray the idea of a "perfect crime," sadly people who watch any type of crime TV or even crime dramas like CSI, will be shaking their heads.The movie does offer up some plot twists which add an element of intelligence in one sense, yet the movie completely loses that edge with some dumb moves. I cannot state them all here as they would give away too much of the movie and I don't want to do that, but just silly little things negate the idea of this being a masterful crime. However, I will point out a few of these said flaws so people know what I am talking about when they see it. To start with, the accomplices Paul chooses are not shall we say the most stable of people, which will be evident from the beginning. Now the movie works itself around in a way where this becomes a positive for Paul. While I can see the point in Paul picking the individuals he did it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that neither one of his accomplices are stable enough, let alone smart enough to play the roles Paul wants them to play by the end of the movie.In the way of forensic evidence there are even more flaws. Paul's prints are all over the location used, at one point in the movie he even vomits in the toilet... can anyone say DNA? Not to mention, his fingerprints are all over some key pieces of evidence *coughCELLPHONEcoughSHOTGUNcough.* I really wanted to like this movie and there are some smart parts and some good twists but the stupidity of the rest of it is just too much for me. I guess the people who wrote this were hoping the audience would be dumb, or so dazzled by the twists that they wouldn't notice...O_OAs far as the acting goes everyone did a pretty good job. While I am a fan of Victor Garber and his portrayal of Jack from the hit TV serious Alias, this performance here as a father is just too over the top and theatrical for my tastes. Sorry Victor. The rest of the cast holds up well and Kevin Zegers is chilling as Paul, yet his character doesn't quite add up. Around mid movie he gets emotional over something one of his accomplices does, yet he turns around at the end of the movie and does the same exact thing without blinking an eye... mmmmm, is one plus one still two? Overall this is an okay movie to watch if you're bored or like one of the actors in here, but this is not a brilliant movie by any stretch of the means, sadly it tries to be and falls way short.

Bludd If you ignore the message this film has, it is quite enjoyable. There is suspense, a few interesting twists and some good performances. However, this all pales in comparison to the film's message.Spoilers incoming: Here we have a smart young man who wants to be one of the rich elite, but does instead come from a family on the precipice of poverty due to the mothers illness. Their house is being foreclosed and the protagonist can't get a job he feels he is worthy of.The protagonist then hatches a plan to get rich. He plans to screw over his "girlfriend" and her friend, two unstable poor people, one an emo chick and the other an anarchist. He plans to kidnap the grown children of some very rich people and ransom them for millions of dollars.The kidnapping goes smoothly up until the emo chick kills one of the victims. Then the victims escape and the emo chick and the anarchist both end up dead; chick killed by the anarchist in a fit of rage after she couldn't find escapees and the anarchist by the protagonist to cover his tracks; the anarchist has a history of suicide attempts.So the film ends with the protagonist, a murderer (anarchist), kidnapper and accessory to murder (rich kid, emo chick arguably), scot-free with millions of dollars in hand.Message is basically the right-wing political dream: screw over the poor and defenceless (the emo chick and the anarchist needed help, but were instead unscrupulously used in a terrible manner), protect the rich (whoops one got killed, that is the real tragedy in this film) and run grinning to the bank. I hate this film with all my heart. 1/10

Eddie The Entitled began well, with excellent cinematography helped by some aerial shots for the opening.The characters are all, unfortunately, written very shallowly, with almost no information provided beyond what is seen on screen.The plot concerns a young man, Paul, who is seen at the beginning struggling to get a job (even though he is perfectly qualified) and providing for his ill mother.Very quickly, the movie introduces Paul's plot to kidnap the silver-spoon-fed children of a trio of rich men. He himself looks like the rich men's children (college age, attractive, great hair), but apparently without the money.His accomplices are another college-age guy and girl. One seems to be his girlfriend (who doesn't seem to be his type) and the other is a Columbine-killer type.The movie begins to fail very quickly once the three young people are kidnapped. The main kidnapper is portrayed as very detail-oriented and together, very purposeful, but he makes mistake after mistake that drive the rest of the story, making it very contrived.SPOILERS FOLLOW The main kidnapper, Paul, is describes as very detail-oriented and his plot is intricate and involves a bit of preparation, but once the plot begins, he sits around letting things happen which threaten his success unnecessarily.His two cohorts are unstable, which he purposely knows, but he makes almost no effort to stop them from doing things to screw things up. Some of this unstable behavior turns out to have been acceptable, but there are some things that they do that he couldn't have foreseen but are played off as being foreseen by him.For example, he tells his Goth cohorts that there is an explosive device at the location where the fathers of his kidnap victims are waiting for the return of their kids. His goth girlfriend sneaks down to where the 3 kids are being held and tells them of this. Later it turns out that there is no such explosive device. 2 of the kidnapped kids escape (because -- duh -- no one was watching them) and make a bee-line for where the parents are waiting to warn them of the impending detonation. This beeline keeps them off the road so that they don't see the main kidnapper driving on the road. SO -- we are expected to buy that Paul planned on lying to his cohorts about the device knowing that they will spill its existence to the kidnappees, knowing that they will escape with enough time to hope to get to their parents' location, knowing that they will have to go through through the forest because they don't have time to follow the road and get their in time, knowing that it will keep them from seeing him escape... but none of it mattering because there really was no explosive device and if they had just been kept locked up there would have been no need for the subterfuge.Paul makes a point of giving his male cohort a 9mm with blanks, knowing that he would be trigger-happy. All of this is played off as having been part of his plan, that the intended to blame all of what happened on the two cohorts. But it is beyond intelligent belief to accept that he would have planned everything will so many details relying on the out-of-control behavior of the other two.The kidnapping is effected by the girl standing in the middle of the road. Coming up on a girl standing threateningly in the middle of the road, the driver is, of course, inclined to stop his car and walk up to her, allowing the Columbine-type guy to "surprise" him with the shotgun (wait, wasn't he NOT supposed to have been given a gun with real ammo?) The 3 kids are taken to the mountain home of one of the other rich parents, which is just 2 miles from where the rich parents are staying in the other mountain home. They are put in a storage space beneath the house. They are tied up and basically NOT WATCHED. Occasional visits are made to them to provide proof of life and to intimidate them.The kidnappers spend their time staring at an unchanging computer screen and playing violent First-Person Shooter video games. NO ONE is tasked with watching to make sure their kidnap victims do not escape.Paul knows that his two accomplices are mentally unhinged, and makes a point of loading blanks into the pistol he gives the guy, but the guy at other times has the shotgun that IS properly loaded, and Paul hands the shotgun to the girl who promptly kills one of the hostages with it. For such a prepared plan, it reeks of poor planning, yet such a glaring plot hole drives the story forward.He has given a pistol loaded with blanks to the other cohort. Later, when he tries to shoot one of the hostages with the gun, the man falls back as if hit but then gets up and runs away. He could have killed someone with it not realizing it was loaded with blanks by pressing it against their body or head. It simply should have been loaded with dummy rounds, which don't have any explosive force.There are other numerous dangling plot points and unanswered questions.END OF SPOILERS For a film that looks as good as it does on screen, and with good performances from the actors (although the kidnap victims are severely underutilized, especially Laura Vandervoort) it is decidedly disappointing that the story fails completely. With a running time of 1 hour, 25 minutes (without the end credits), there was ample time to flesh out the characters and fix the numerous plot holes. It seems to come down to lazy story-telling in the end.The end result is a bad film, not worth watching.