So this movie was really not too bad... And by that I mean that as I watched it, I kept having to wipe the bile away as it dripped down my chin, while simultaneously pinching myself to make sure that I hadn't died and gone to hell. So wow. Really just mind blown. So we've got this guy, this supposed ex- womanizer (a point that was as un-believable as it was useless... We're talking serious beer gut with a kind of serial killery look) who apparently takes his job as a insurance fraud investigator very seriously, to the point of breaking and entering and lying to old women. Then this guy, this fellah', if you will: he hooks up with Mena Suvari using his culture as a lure. Lucky guy I guess.After his dry and slow relationship had sufficiently bored me to death, this fellah' is tricked by his employers and then drugged, brought to a bridge and finally dropped in the water with some chains on his wrists, and apparently a paperclip or key in his pocket. All this to leave him framed for some murders that they - his employers - had to commit to silence people for asking questions about the massive quantities of bath salts that they were shipping through the town in broad daylight (we're talking van loads).Fast forward one year and we have an equally unattractive, boring and useless character as the investigator, but this one is a writer who is investigating the murders of the town's people. This writer pays $10,000 a month for his condo, and ends up getting pretty deep into the investigation, finding out some pretty dark secrets and all until finally he has to save the girl (Mena Suvari), kill the 5 or 6 thugs, and is finally saved himself by Tom Arnold in a helicopter with a sniper rifle.Then, in an M. Night Shyamalan styled twist we find out that he was dead the whole time! No.... No... That wasn't it... It turned out that the writer guy WAS the investigator from the beginning. But he's spent a year training and getting money from somewhere. Its like the Count of Monte Cristo if it was written by a greeter from Wal Mart, which I think is actually the case after finding out that our lead actor who's name is Average McAverageson, was not only the writer, but also produced the movie himself! Bravo sir. You get one star because IMDb is kind enough to have that be the minimum. My theory: The guy who wrote and acted in this movie really liked Mena Suvari (and I mean, who doesn't. She's absolutely gorgeous), and spent 2.5 million dollars so that he could spend four hours filming a scene with her in a bra.

When I tried to see why some people had a lower opinion of the movie than me, some of the reviews complained that the plot made no sense, but I saw fewer plot holes in this movie than I did with Hard Candy, another movie I just saw recently. I'll get into my review first and then cover some comments about other reviewers' complaints.From a story point of view, I thought it was an interesting enough twist. Acting was OK. OK, I'll have to agree with one of the reviewers that perhaps Tom Arnold did shine the best with his typical Tom Arnold type of character (annoying but somehow likable). To me, I would say the biggest complaint I had about the movie is that it had a Made for TV feel to it. Part of it was the script where it was a partial comedy with Tom's character, but a type of crime thriller, too. However, what gave it most the Made for TV feel was the directing/camera handling. I also just saw the movie Colombiana recently, and it's day and night difference between the two movies how to give a movie the "big screen" feel. With this type of directing, it's not surprising that the actors were able to do more than just a passable job.*** SPOILERS BELOW ***To comment on some of the reviews which said that the movie did not make sense, one reviewer complained about the doctor being brutalized in broad daylight. If the viewer had been paying attention, the two thugs were simply "escorting" the doctor, most likely to a boat where they can dump him in the middle of the river. They didn't start roughing him up until they got toward the end of the pier where there was no one else around. Perhaps to give the story line the benefit of the doubt, this is when they needed to "convince" the doctor to get into the boat. However, since Alex came along, they decided to just shoot the doctor right there. Actually, this makes sense since if their objective is to kill the doctor, it would be a lot dumber to not finish the job just because someone caught on to what you were doing. Now, the scene itself was a bit odd because Alex was shooting and it wasn't clear if he was just shooting, not really aiming at them, because he didn't know what else to do... Or in case he was aiming at them, then he didn't seem to care whether he accidentally hit the doctor or not.So this scene could have been better planned, and there were others as well, but to me, it didn't detract from the enjoyment of the movie since I already was in the opinion that this had a Made for TV feel to it.Another reviewer complained that when Alex appeared, people started dying...? I am assuming this is what he meant and not when Brian first appeared. If he meant Brian, then that is one of the reasons they pinpointed the murders on Brian. But if the viewer meant Alex, technically speaking, Alex did not start killing people until the end. It was Tom's character who killed the first guys after Alex's arrival. For the reviewer who complained about the role of an insurance fraud investigator... All we know is that Brian was hired to videotape these people. Perhaps in a real fraud investigation, there are different people who have different roles, one of which is the person who does the videotaping. But anyway, as we find out anyway, he was not hired to do real insurance fraud investigation. This was a down-on-his-luck kind of guy who was taking any job he could get... so he was told to videotape under the pretense of fraud insurance. Since we find out it was not fraud insurance, then there doesn't need to be any connection to reality to what a real fraud investigator does... How is Brian supposed to know?Anyway, so I enjoyed the twist in the movie, and while definitely not one of the better movies out there, I thought it was worthwhile watching on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The man who produced and starred in this film is a joke. He took decent actors (Et Tu, Bill Sadler?) and gave them some terrible lines to read. Then he had the audacity to put himself in the lead when he has no talent. There are PLENTY of better actors in Michigan than him. But instead of caring about the CRAFT of film-making, he just wanted to fulfill his fantasy of having Mena Suvari play his girlfriend. Mark, when Tom Arnold out-acts you, you need to WISE UP. I am begging you to stop making films. Seriously, your money could be spent on something so much better. Everything about this film is horrible: the special effects, the "action," the cinematography, and the music. The best you can hope for is that the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 crew will get a hold of this and give it the thrashing that it deserves.

Like another reviewer, I would have rated this movie with a negative number if that were available. Never, never, never again will I watch a movie where the "executive producer," writer and star are the same guy who you never heard of before. This movie is an example of what somebody with too much money and absolutely no acting talent what so ever can do. The professional actors all dealt in a professional manner with the crappy dialog they were given, but Mark Bierlein has no business being involved with show business as an actor or writer. His only other movie, "Street Boss," rated 3.1 on IMDb, was another one where he was the executive producer, writer, and star (what a surprise!)probably because nobody else would risk funding the drivel that he writes.I got the movie because of William Sadler and Mena Suvari, both fine actors, and because C. Thomas Howell and even Tom Arnold are OK to good actors, but I didn't know who Mark Bierlein was. Now that I do, I'll be on the look out to avoid anything involving this guy in ANY capacity.