Living & Dying
Living & Dying
| 30 March 2007 (USA)
Living & Dying Trailers

Four desperate bank robbers are forced to abandon their lucrative heist plans and become the reluctant heroes when two of their hostages turn out to be psychotic killers who won't stop until everyone in the bank has been ruthlessly slaughtered. As the police surround the building and the killers begin methodically executing the hostages.

Reviews
vanbemmelb

Gotta start with Ed Furlong on this one. You gotta. God bless this kid. $5 bucks says the character he plays in this film is what he's really like in real life. He has a one-liner or two that made me almost blow snot because of the subtle humor in the script. You know all the trials this guy has gone through in recent years and it doesn't even seem like Furlong is even acting. Maybe that's why his performance was good. Same with Madsen. You keep thinking, "I bet this guy is really like this in real life." Does Madsen even have to act? Just natural. Vosloo has obviously moved on from the type-casted Mummy guy. I think the biggest surprise to this film was Jordana Spiro's performance. Her reactions are spot-on in this film. I battled if she was hot or not, but realized I would just like to see more of her. Not a big fan of shoot 'em out/hostage type films. But what I am a fan of are films with lots of twists and turns to try and keep you guessing. It's not just your standard robbers take over a bank, they kill hostages, and the good guys win in the end type of film. The twists keep on coming...and coming.The café scenes work best with the hand-held cams to show what it's really like in there. Not glossed over a bit. Think like Bourne Ultimatum "lite" style on some scenes in the café.And for those Bo Bice fanatics out there - actor Curtis Wayne (who plays Karl) will make you do a double take. These guys are twins.As I watched I wondered why some of the actors had foreign accents and what were they doing in this small town. Made sense in the end that these people smuggled stuff to other countries/states so they might have these accents. But more is revealed in the bonus features of how some of the producers wanted to make this film for International audiences with some of their stars we might not have heard of. And some of them are smoking hot. Moncia Dean? Need I say more.

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largo-9

I saw this DVD in my friends house and thought that this was a Turkish action movie with some Hollywood-not very big-names in it. Interested enough I decide to give it a shot later.. It was a tough to bear experience believe me. Then, after finally seeing the credits roll I tought 'We Turks really suck at Hollywood style film making.. This is an insult to the heist|hostage movie genre..' but then wait! I checked some names and no, they were not Turkish names and no, this was not a Turkish movie; on the contrary it was literally shot in America with an American director & crew! That made me thinking-again!- How on earth can you persuade names like Micheal Madsen, Edward Furlong or even Arnold Vosloo to take part in such a project? with money probably.. That kept me thinking further.. How can you raise such amount of money to offer them and a supposedly international cast? Then all my meditation paid off and I came to find the answer.By hiring the cheapest equipment and crew that you can find. And if you still have to difficulty in adjustin your budget then: by writing and directing the movie you are trying to produce-or vice versa I don't have any information on that-. So bottom line this is not a bad movie as everybody are so anxious to present as.. It makes you think -in my case even meditate- and there are a lot of movies outthere that doesn't give even that affect.. This one at least makes you think; It makes you wonder.. It leaves you with disbelief.. and then It makes you wonder again..

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transient-2

Sometimes a movie is so comprehensively awful it has a destructive effect on your morale. You begin to really ask yourself, what does it mean for our society that the standard is so terribly low? Can they honestly expect that we'll endure this many clichés and still be entertained?Of course, it is still a Hollywood mainstay to make the GUN the major character, plot device, and the source of all conflict and resolution in films. Character needs a gun. Gets a gun. Can't do that because he has a gun. Puts his gun down first. OH MY GOD What are we going to do!? He has a gun! He waves it around, acting more malicious than real human beings ever do. He pushes it in someone's face for 90 minutes, shouting questions. The hallmark of any conclusion will be the comforting sound of police sirens. It's a real challenge to make such a tired, hackneyed formula work again; a film has to be very clever and well executed. This one is neither. It has no life and no personality, and it will suck these components from YOU. it will make you feel WORSE about living in the time and space that you do. Really, who needs that!? So yes, I'll say it: I think this may well be the worst film I have ever seen. Anyone who was involved in the making of this sub- mediocre soul killing trash should be publicly embarrassed for the disservice they've done to us all.

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JohnnySarrabulho Sarrabulho

I have to congratulate the genius who approved this one. Edward Furlong, you're not as good as you think mate, you can't grab on every piece of low-cost amateur crap, which sole intention has to be to get some bucks.The filming is bad, and I mean BAD. Anyone with a camera would get the same result, or better.The acting, lets just say: don't go to the supermarket looking for actors. The good ones usually come with a degree or, at least, have some damn experience! The director.. Mr. Jon Keeyes, please find your purpose in life, as a director you simply suck. Your directing is poor, the angles are all messed up (not in a good way), the lines seem as if they're being read out of toilet paper, and the damn music.. it always comes up when it shouldn't and goes out for no apparent reason. And don't go for writer either, by the way. Making movies isn't like serving on a coffeshop, it requires art and skill, things I really doubt you'll ever have.Instead of making a badass shootout movie, you should've shot this one back to oblivion and wait 'till something good came up.. Or just go find a job on a coffeshop. You'll have less stress and you'll save movie goers some money and a bad night.vote: 1/10 (my first one)

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