[Review] The Loft

Here's an erotic thriller that isn't sexy or intriguing. In fact, it's one of the least appealing things you could see. After being shelved for a while, The Loft quickly got dumped into a slot before Fifty Shades of Grey racks up. It's so bad that it almost made me wish I were watching the latter instead.

"The Loft" is a snazzy apartment dig that five businessmen (played by Karl Urban, James Mardsen, Eric Stonestreet, Wentworth Miller, and Matthias Schoenaerts) invested in so they can use it to secretly escape from their family lives and bang chicks. Everything is a party until the day when they find a naked, murdered woman handcuffed to the bed. The plot alternates between interrogations, the scene of the crime, and the events leading up to the crime. The group suspects that either an outsider stole one of their keys and did it, or one of them is the lying culprit. It's The Hangover but without the tigers, face tattoos, or any ounce of entertainment.

It's incredibly dull and unrelentingly sleazy. A lot of scenes drag on too long without getting much done in the way of story or amusement value. During the back half, the narrative seems to hit cruise control as it blurs into one long, gross, and un-entrancing montage. It's the type of movie you might fall asleep to on a rainy weekend afternoon and wake up like, "This is STILL on?"And when the climax and reveal finally does come, a sense of deja vu sets in as if you've seen it before or knew exactly what happened. Then, for some reason, the film continues for another 20 minutes. You'll get more run out of a CSI or 48 Hours episode, and with more concise duration. None of the characters are worth giving a damn about in any way whatsoever. They're all so boneheaded and wrapped up in their own interests that you wouldn't mind if they all got tossed off a skyscraper.

The Loft is a waste of talent and space.

2/10