Crawl (2011)

If you read the online comments on various internet message boards, you'll see phrases like 'a thinking man's horror film' and 'highly atmospheric.' Then, when people - sadly, like me - who simply describe the film as 'boring,' we get criticised for 'only liking the lowest form of film' and 'not appreciating it.' It's about a seedy bar-owner who hires a mysterious hit-man to do away with an out-of-favour colleague. However, things go wrong and the hit-man ends up stalking a hapless (and overly-perfect, in my opinion) barmaid who works at the bar.I'm afraid, for all the high-brow talk about Crawl, I just found it dull. There are long periods where there's no talking. And, in an attempt to 'create tension,' the same three chords are played endlessly on a cello. These scenes repeat at various intervals all the way through the film and you're just as well fast forwarding them and watching the speeded-up version (as you'll see what's happening at a fraction of the screen-time).I don't just watch Michael Bay films and movies filled with endless car chases. I do watch other movies where I also have to (occasionally) use my head to figure things out. However, I just couldn't help but get bored with this.Obviously, judging by the amount of positive praise there is out there for this film, then it has found an audience out there somewhere - I'm just one of those philistines who didn't appreciate it. Sorry! On the plus side, it's short!

The Croatian comes to town and sanctions (kills for hire) the owner of a petrol station, Rusty Sapp. He gets paid by the Slim Walding (who owns the bar where most of the other characters work) and leaves town. He runs over a pedestrian on the way to his next stop. This turns out to be Travis, who's truck had stalled out.Marilyn prepares for the return of her fiancé to be, Travis. He's late for business reasons. Then he keeps on being late. The Croatian breaks in, ties her up, and gags her. He's looking for transportation, but Travis had the truck as well as the keys to the old motorcycle.The police come visit Slim Walding about the murder of Rusty Sapp. Later, Slim and Holly play the spanking game to work off Holly's debt to Slim. He makes her crawl to him before she gets over his knee, bares her bottom, then spanks her hard.The Croatian goes back and kills what's left of Travis, then steals the engagement ring from the corpse. Slim finds his gun missing; he figures he's being set up. He drives to Marilyn's house, finds Travis' blood, Travis' truck, but not Travis. So he heads to Marilyn's house; he steps in the chocolate cake Marilyn's friend left on the stoop. He sees the blood from the Croatian's wounded leg. He tries to get answers after he unties Marilyn, but she has few answers. The Croatian comes in and disrupts their conversation. Then the Croatian goes after Marilyn.Do we find out the Croatian's motivations? Does Slim get what he seems to deserve? Will Marilyn survive all this? -----Scores-------Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.Sound: 8/10 The incidental music was often spot on, but sometimes overbearingly loud.Acting: 7/10 Just fine if one likes the acting style that the Coen brothers favour.Screenplay: 7/10 Just what was the plot against Slim? What was the history with Slim and Holly? How did the Croatian come into play here? There are a few too many loose ends here.

I'm a big fan of clever movies and sometimes feel the less action the better, but wow is this utter garbage. I can tell that there was a decent idea in there somewhere, but the execution was so bad the idea died on the vine. Either that or the director thought drawing everything out five times longer than needed was a good substitute for suspense. Other than the excruciatingly slow pace, and the multiple references to crawling that weren't clever at all the move suffered many other issues. At the heart was a hit man who was older than my grandfather (easily 80 and looked about as threatening), an idiot fiancé, a overly creepy bar owner (I mean who would work there after the interview?), and a heroine that moved at a snails pace and stared every time there was the slightest noise. The worse criticism I can give is that the movie was relatively short at just under 80 minutes, but still seemed 40 minutes too long.The acting was decent and the lead actress was very attractive, but the lack of character development made it pretty irrelevant who lived or died. In short unless you really like slow, painful movies without any payoff skip this clunker.

I attended a screening of this impressive movie last night at FrightFest in Glasgow, also in attendance were the China Brothers.After reading some critic reviews of the movie where it was described as a "slow burner" etc I prepared myself for 60 minutes of tortuous nothingness followed by 30 minutes of manic catching up before ending in a bang.Crawl was not a slow burner. Crawl is a brilliantly crafted work of suspense, tension and horror. From the very beginnings, the China Brothers mould their characters in front of you, building them into solid centerpieces of their film - without giving too much away - the casting of the three main actors in this is perfect, and, given they only had a very limited script to work with, they deliver the tense and suspenseful scenes with powerful ease.Location, actors, storyline, delivery and end product are all perfect, and I look forward to Brothers' future work with great anticipation, as they lavish such care and attention on their work, that they deserve a far wider release with Crawl and future films.Don't miss this if it visits a cinema near you - you won't be disappointed.