Isolation (2015) Reviews

• Maybe a Very Rainy Night Rental.

  larrys32017-04-19

  There's a solid cast in this slow burn thriller, as the first 30 minutes of the movie are most glacially paced. Lydia (Tricia Helfer) and Creighton (Luke Mably) have agreed to travel to a remote Bahamian island to try and patch up their marital troubles, stemming from an affair that Creighton admitted to. While having dinner at a neighbor's home on the island, they return to find the villa where they're staying (owned by one of Creighton's clients) has been ransacked and all their valuables stolen. From that point on, all hell will break loose as mayhem and violence ensue, resulting in the couple fighting for their lives. Some of the plot machinations here are highly implausible, but I thought, overall, the movie was not awful but it was not very good either. To note, there's raw language laced throughout the film and some explicit scenes as well. Maybe a rental for a very rainy night.

• This Disappoints Me

  cmovies-996742017-10-14

  PROS: I liked the premise of the movie. I actually think, that although this was based on real events, it was actually altogether compelling. The director had a clear image for what this movie should've been and it seemed to me that he achieved everything that the set out to do. The acting was good when it wasn't thrilling. When the movie was slower and wasn't building up tension the characters did a nice job at showing their individual relationships. CONS: For me the movie was just too corny. Overall the acting felt extra and bizarre. The movements the actors made felt very rehearsed and unnatural. Characters in the movie just didn't fell real when it came to the action scenes. With horror movies it is important to have the authenticity in both the tense and the not tense scenes. The sort of fakeness I saw in the movie effected my watching experience greatly. The intensity fell flat because there was no real fear that took place because there were no people experiencing the real fear. It all comes back around to how real everything feels. If I don't feel that this could actually happen to me then I wouldn't actually be scared. The other thing that frustrated me was the beginning and the end of the film. The beginning was so slow. It took forever to get to the actual point of the story. They just dragged everything out way to much and built the characters and their bonds a needless amount. Then when you got to the ending you had the complete opposite problem as the beginning. The resolution was just way to short and felt so unfinished. I wish the movie took an extra 5 minutes at least to actually resolve the film. www.chorror.com

• This Should Be Exiled

  kirbylee70-599-5261792017-06-11

  Occasionally in the course of writing about movies you find a rare gem of a film that no one has ever heard of. This is not one of those movies. Instead this is one of those movies that angers you when the final credits finally appear. It angers you because you know the people involved are capable of so much more at least in the actors on the film. They're better actors than what is on display. ISOLATION is just that sort of movie. Creighton and Lydia Masterson (Luke Mable and Tricia Helfer) are a couple with problems. Creighton had cheated on Lydia but came clean and is not trying to salvage his marriage. Lydia is willing to give him that chance. He presents her with a trip to the Bahamas and the home of a wealthy client. Things go awry when they discover the neighbors are beginning a restoration project and creating quite a racket. His friend comes to the rescue sending his daughter to escort them to an alternative, a small island nearby he has a retreat at. It seems the perfect place and that first day they meet neighbors they weren't aware of, William and Mary (Stephen Lang and Claudia Church). Invited to dinner the couples seem to hit it off, even after learning that William and Mary are sort of on the run. Years before they were convicted of selling grass and ran away to their island retreat, bothering no one and enjoying life on the island. After a little too much to smoke and drink, Creighton and Lydia head home to discover their house has been broken into and all of their luggage, food, passports and everything else stolen. The next day they go looking for a phone to call the mainland and come across Max (Dominic Purcell) who offers to give them a hand. He takes them to his place where they meet Nina (Marie Avgeropoulos), his companion. When the phone seems out and they can't get a signal, Max takes Creighton out in his boat in the hopes of reaching one. Before long the question of who can be trusted and who is not what they seem come into play and a life and death battle is the end result. This movie crawls along at such a tedious pace that even if you watched it in fast forward you would find it difficult to stay awake. The writing is terrible, the pacing painful to suffer through, the camera-work passable and the locations which should look like Heaven on earth look like the film was shot in the off season. It is filled with far too many expository scenes, travelogue styled sequences that encourage no one to want to travel to the Bahamas and do little more than fill out the 86 minutes of screen time that feels so much longer. Helfer whose star was on the rise with her appearances in both the reboot of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BURN NOTICE has fallen into more roles like this for some reason. She's a capable actress and deserves better. Purcell has come from the successful series PRISONBREAK into far too many movies like this before returning to a successful TV series in DC'S LEGENDS OF TOMORROW. Again, he's a much better actor than the roles he's being presented with. I'd suggest new management for both of these actors. Lang is another in a line of actors on display here that can be amazing to watch and yet Hollywood never seems to know what to do with him. His career has seen highs like TOMBSTONE and AVATAR but then gone to lows as well. Last year he starred in the highly under-appreciated DON'T BREATHE. Again, get a better agent because you deserve more than this. I can't think of anyone who would enjoy this film. It's not even a good bad movie. It just sits there and does nothing, offers nothing and the best I can see it accomplishing is being a good doorstop but only if nothing else is available. As I said, for me it left me angry because of the talent that was wasted in what could have been at least a decent movie. Instead it makes Ed Wood look like a talented director.

• We all have secrets

  nogodnomasters2017-07-05

  A couple has marital problems. They go off to an island and we suffer through the light drama. They meet some people and then get chased near the end of the film. I kept waiting for something to happen. They just couldn't go to the island they had to go through the whole martial thing, go to one island and then the other. The film was 90% filler. "Isolation" and "Fugitives" are the same film. The production is a waste of talent. Guide: F-word. Shower sex. No nudity.

• Passable

  Leofwine_draca2019-01-13

  FUGITIVES is a low budget thriller that benefits from an economy of scripting and a sun-drenched backdrop in the form of location shooting in the Bahamas. The story sees your usual uninteresting couple (the male played by British actor Luke Mably, indifferent at best) who find themselves in hot water when their dream holiday destination turns into a nightmare when they're robbed. The film benefits from the presence of two B-movie stalwarts, Stephen Lang and Dominic Purcell, and the latter is particularly effective in the strongman role. The whole thing is full of cliche and hackneyed in the extreme, but the thrills work okay and as a B-movie it's passable enough.