Shallow Grave (1994)

Director:
Danny Boyle

Writer:

John Hodge

            ''Oh, yes. I believe in friends. I believe we need them. But if one day you can't trust them any more, well, what then... What then?''

             Perhaps it's ungrateful to review a 90's movie in 2010 but never the less we are about to do that now since we just finished watching this movie. We came across it on the (www.imdb.com) web page, it scored a promising 7.4 points. Does it justify that high score? Let's find out!

            The story follows three young people: Alex, David and Juliet who seek a new roommate. After a long search and making fun of bunch of weird candidates, the decision was made. Hugo was the new roommate and what ruled the decision was his ability to pay in advance.

The next day our characters find his dead body and a suitcase loaded with money. What to do? Take it or leave it and call the police?

             In the beginning there is a brief moment when the screen is totally red, and for that moment we were reminded of the recent movie we reviewed, Calvaire. Luckily that moment was very brief and we soon realized that this movie was nothing like it.

As you could have read the movie has a simple storyline.

Of course, here we have a classic problem of human morality.

Who wouldn't love easy money? It's unfair to say that you wouldn't at least think about it. The two of us had an opportunity like this, we found a lost wallet with some cash in it but we decided to return it.

I have to point out that there was a very small amount of cash in question :)

But imagine if you had a suitcase full of money... would you return it or would you already be on some tropical island with a few gorgeous ladies or gents, depending on your preference :)

           Although simple in its premise Shallow Grave is definitely a decent little thriller, enjoyable to watch, with a few thrilling moments, nice and almost unpredictable twist.

If we had the opportunity to watch it in the 90's when it was made, we would have been thrilled by it, but judging from this time I would say that calling it a decent movie is more than fair.

The movie is made with secure formulaic scheme full of cliches which, for movie of this type and age, cannot be taken as a bad thing.

Despite all of that we can say that this movie is better than majority of pointless new thrillers, so it still was kind of delightful. It was almost fascinating how a low budget movie can turn out to be watchable and enjoyable experience. We took as an advantage the fact that main characters are unlikeable from the very beginning because it suits the atmosphere. In a situation like this it's better not to relate too much with characters because they are supposed to be shrewd.

Still, the most likable character of the movie was Alex. You wish you knew him because of his young spirit, living on the edge type of life and laziness. Juliet, on the other hand, was flirty and somewhat uninteresting, and David...David was the quiet one :) The other characters worth mentioning were the two policemen, notably the inspector who made the atmosphere even more suspensful.

We would even go that far to say that he put on the best performance.

           All in all, is the money worth losing your friends, your personality and life? No. 

But is it worth trying to take it on to the next level? Now, that's the question which doesn't have an answer until you get an opportunity like that yourself.

Our score:
Liz: 7/10
Kyle: 6.5/10