Kyle Miller (Nicolas Cage) is a diamond broker with a lovely wife, Sarah (Nicole Kidman), a rebellious teenage daughter, Avery (Liana Liberato, Trust), and a magnificent house that is in the process of being completed. He seems to have it all from the outside world, and unfortunately, the outside world comes to take what he has. He and Sarah are surprised by a team of vicious home invaders who are after a million dollars in diamonds Kyle is currently trying to sell. The thieves, led by Elias (Ben Mendelsohn) and younger brother, Jonah (Cam Gigandet, The Roommate), are floored when Kyle refuses to open his safe, even when they threaten the lives of his wife and child. But things are not as they appear and Kyle is craftier than the thieves give him credit for.
We eventually come to discover that Jonah and Sarah know each other better than they first let on, and that Kyle just might have some knowledge of this. As Elias' desperation mounts to get his hands on $180,000 that he owes to some drug dealers, so does his girlfriend's tension. Petal (Jordana Spiro, My Boys in a surprising role for her) is a cracked-out stripper who is also along for the robbery, but since she is stoned, she is unpredictable and causing all sorts of trouble. This doesn't sit too well with the drug dealers' muscle, Ty (Dash Mihok), who is also wielding a gun. It will take all of the Miller family's wits and bravery, and a dash of luck, if they are going to survive the night.
For starters, the characters just weren't too likeable and I had a hard time having any sympathy for them. Kyle works like crazy, but doesn't spend time with his family. Sarah tries to be a good wife and parent, yet she seems to have a wandering eye. Ariel is spoiled, rebellious and angry - and she's kind of stupid at times, as well. Then there is the team of thieves - Elias is a drug dealer who had a large stash of drugs stolen from him, so he owes some dangerous people big money, while Petal is a cold-hearted stripper who only cares about drugs and her own satisfaction. Ty is just an ass and completely unlikeable, while even Jonah reveals himself to be a somewhat psychotic looney. Secondly, there's a lot of profanity to be found here. While I am certainly no stranger to bad language (Lord knows I've been mistaken for having a bad case of sailor mouth on many occasions), the language here just seemed to be for the sake of cursing. Some of it was even stupid and made no sense. If you are going to curse, do it for a reason, to punctuate an event or statement, but saying silly things and just inserting curse words in them just rubbed me the wrong way. It was like everything was overdone, from the thieves' bad-ass attitude to Kyle's ridiculous bravado at the risk of his family's lives. I just didn't buy any of it. I turned on the subtitles because with all of the crashing and beating going on, I wanted to be able to hear what was being said, but even that was done poorly. Misspelled words and incorrect words occur frequently and, as any of my staff can tell you, I hate misspelled words. Even worse is putting the wrong word which completely changes the meaning of some things. It's minor, but just shows an overall lack of polish on the production.
Special features consist only of a 5-minute featurette on the making-of, which is better skipped. As for the high-def aspect of the film, sure the movie was crisp, but there was nothing outstanding either in the audio or the visuals.
In short, I didn't like this film at all and by the middle of the film, I simply didn't care what happened to any of them. I'd have been fine with the entire house blowing up and killing everyone. Roll credits. Kidman and Cage can do better than this and so can Liana Liberato, who was stellar in another of Millennium's films, Trust. Go rent that instead. You'll end up just as bummed out, but you would have seen a fantastic and moving film instead of this Joel Schumacher-directed drivel.
