The Loft

The only thing that kept me interested in The Loft was my suspicion the cast members had a secret wager as to who could say “The Loft” the most throughout the movie. Karl Urban won!

Vince (Karl Urban), Chris (James Marsden), Luke (Wentworth Miller), Marty (Eric Stonestreet, with all sorts of stubble to make him look tougher and butch) and Philip (Matthias Schoenaerts) are five guys who think they rule the world. Rich, successful and with wandering eyes for other ladies, they get the idea that the rules don’t apply to them.

In the latest manifestation of this psychological shortcoming, Vince thinks it would be awesome if they had a secret hideaway in the city where they can fool around on their wives and engage in all sorts of extramarital behavior, some of it crossing the line into depraved territory (I would like to defend my gender by stating not of all us act and think like this).

It all sounds like fun and games, until Philip stops by the loft one day and finds a murdered woman! Who committed the crime?

Who thinks up this stuff?

How many times can Urban say "The Loft"?

Seriously, do writers Bart De Pauw (author of the book) and Wesley Strick harbor a wicked fantasy where they could own some sex den in the middle of the city and have their way with willing women? Probably not, but what makes them think we want to see this and fantasized about it ourselves? Strick was probably in this for the paycheck, so let’s give him a pass, but De Pauw came up with this idea all by himself, so he has no one else to blame.

You can tell Strick, De Pauw and director Erik Van Looy want the movie to be provocative, sexy and dangerous. Instead, The Loft is atrocious.

It’s a terrible premise to begin with, full of soap opera-style monologues revealing melodramatic tales. These guys should write for The Young And The Restless, but those producers would do a better job editing down the script to avoid scene after endless scene trying to extend the movie far beyond the point we stopped caring.

Then, the mystery is nothing but a series of red herrings cheating the audience out of the honest chance to try to put together the facts to discover who is behind the murder and why. Essentially, everything you see is a deception, so what’s the fun in that?

De Pauw, Strick and Van Looy can sit around proud of how no one could see that ending coming, but that’s because it is so ludicrous and out of left field, you would have to be insane to think this was where the story was leading all along. None of it ties together or leads to this conclusion.

The only thing worse than the actual plot is the writing of the characters. Stonestreet is left to play a horrible, clumsily written boorish clown, while Urban is stuck with a character who is not the smooth player he thinks he is, and Marsden is saddled with standing around for most of the movie trying to look shocked at every development. I guess he is supposed to play the good guy here, but you can’t call him a good guy as you see what sins he has committed.

When it’s not boring, The Loft is laughable, and not in the good way.

Blah!!!!!

The Loft is rated R for sexual content, nudity, bloody violence, language and some drug use.