Botched Reviews

...Mostly bloody. And when an armor-clad direct descendant of Ivan the Terrible shows up to hack and slash our beleaguered anti-heroes, borderline ridiculous.

In this pseudo-horror, pseudo-comedy, the pseudo-plot follows a thief named Ritchie (Stephen Dorff) who, when a jewel heist goes badly awry, pays a visit to his crime boss Mr. Groznyi (Sean Pertwee) who forces him, under duress, to pull off another crime.

Ritchie joins forces with sociopath Peter (Jamie Foreman) and his whimpering brother Yuri (Russell Smith) in a high-rise in Moscow, Russia. Their mission, to steal an expensive cross that once belonged to royalty.

No one ever wanted to watch a movie about a safe and simple jewel heist, however, and things get complicated- fast. Although he is a thief, Ritchie has a moral code.

Peter, on the other hand, doesn't, and pretty soon a woman is dead and they have a cluster of hostages- among them shy pacifist Dmitry (Hugh O'Conor,) attractive Anna (Jaime Murray,) and a strange, religious group of women led by Sonya (Bronagh Gallagher.)

When one of these people pulls a gun... and it is revealed the entire floor is booby-trapped and policed by a madman, things get bloody. Although it has some funny moments, "Botched" dishes out sequence after comic sequence that simply doesn't work- among them the stolen sandwich, the pissing rat, and the scene where Dmitry is slapped.

On top of that Jaime Murray, as Anna, is mediocre at best and the idea that she would even consider hooking up with Ritchie is really pushing it. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone? The performance of Edward Baker-Duli as the mad slasher is exaggerated and uninteresting, like a role in a stage play- a really bad stage play.

Although I did like the Russian music and the hyper-kinetic cinematography, "Botched" was neither funny nor involving enough to hold my attention. On the back of the box, Slasherpool.com calls it a 'brilliant horror-comedy' and compares it to "Shaun of the Dead." Fat chance, skippy.

No 13th floor? i think NOT!

Hiest man Ritchie keeps on screwing up his "last" hiest in order to pay a debt off to a russian mob man. upon route to exiting a very simple robbery in which the russians assistant cared to join (and screw up by killing when there was no need to) the elevator jams and lets them off on the 13th floor; a floor which is unacessable and unknown by any other part of the building. after having no choice, the passengers on the elevator reluctant to get off in the first place now become hostages and before long all must team up to leave the building alive.
This movie was awesome! simple enough, eh? one of the many movies i picked up at a nearby closing video store, yet one of the few which surprised me and made me laugh. Not too many actually scary parts, but a horror movie non the less. on top of having extreme gore to indroduce it has a horror flick, it is packed with laughs around every corner (literaly), funny accents on people you know dont come from Russia, and a good looking girl to stay by the side of Mr. Dorff. Really through she somehow came into plan and there was going to be one last twist at the end, but when all was done and the credits came on the screen, i was happy with how it ended and glad i didnt have another frisbee as oppose to a good dvd. nothing too silly to bring you out the aspect of an event as oppose to a movie, hate that in flicks. Even though you are firmiliar with a few of the cast memebers, you still feel like this is an adventure all anew for each of them.