BOTCHED
© Warner Home Video
Grade: B
Rated: Unrated
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Jaime Murray, Hugh O'Conor, Geoff Bell, Bronagh Gallagher, Edward Baker-Duly, Jamie Foreman, Russell Smith
Written By: Eamon Friel, Derek Boyle
Directed By: Kit Ryan
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Original Year of release: 2008
Extras: None
Buy it now!
Rated: Unrated
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Jaime Murray, Hugh O'Conor, Geoff Bell, Bronagh Gallagher, Edward Baker-Duly, Jamie Foreman, Russell Smith
Written By: Eamon Friel, Derek Boyle
Directed By: Kit Ryan
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Original Year of release: 2008
Extras: None
Buy it now!
DVD Review: BOTCHED
By: Robert T. TrateDate: Friday, May 09, 2008
Master thief, Ritchie (Stephen Dorff), has just had an easy job go horribly wrong. To settle all debts with his boss and earn his freedom he agrees to another job hoping it will be his last. It is easy enough: break into a high rise apartment and steal a cross. There are just a couple of catches. One: it is the family cross of Ivan the Terrible and two: the job is in Moscow.
Ritchie is partnered with two brothers. One is a violent idiot, Peter (Jamie Foreman) and the other is a whimpering simpleton, Yuri (Russell Smith). Stealing the cross is easy for Ritchie and the two brothers. However, it is on the way out where the film takes a horrific, twisted and disturbingly funny turn.
Ritchie, the brothers and several others on an elevator are stopped on the thirteenth floor of the high rise with nowhere else to go. Believing that the authorities are on to them, Ritchie and the brothers take everyone hostage and get out on the floor. What they discover is a bizarre maze of traps, quirky hostages, religious zealots and a nut job dressed up as Ivan the Terrible (Edward Baker-Duly).
Invoking the nightmare torture qualities of the Saw movies and the Cube films, Botched balances scares with humor perfectly. Stephen Dorff as Ritchie plays the straight man to a cast of eclectic characters. Jaime Murray, as Anna, brings a subtlety and sexiness to the film that enables the other hostages to seem even more off-kilter. Murray plays off of Dorff to give his thief a much needed humanity and likeability. It would be difficult to cheer for him as the hero without her there. Their shared moment is believable and subtle enough that fans of the genre will not roll their eyes at its inevitability.
The film on a whole is really an ensemble character piece. The religious zealot (Bronagh Gallagher), the dishonorably discharged solider (Geoff Bell) and the nerdy TV clerk (Hugh O'Conor) all become unhinged during captivity. Their collective downward spiral of insanity makes Botched unique. The film is a crime-horror-comedy that, without each of these particular characters and their individual ambitions, would fall flat.
Two big questions summarize the film’s major weakness. First, why the oversized mechanical rat in a big budget film? Rizzo the Rat from the Muppet Show was more believable. Second, where does the humor go? This was the uncut version of the film so perhaps the odd laughs were added special features to lengthen the film. Either way, it is a peculiar film but the comical moments were a strength.
