[Movie 250 / Day 262]
Two bankers, Alistair (Dougray Scott) and Jamie (Alastair Mackenzie), get their rocks off by playing 12-hour games of hide and seek. They recruit a willing volunteer with the promises of a large, cash payout if they successfully manage to hide for the full time. What they don’t tell them is if they’re found, they’re killed. Young lad Sean lives with his sister, who has managed to rack up plenty of debt with some dubious characters. So when Alistair and Jamie turn up and throw him a lifeline, he grabs it with both hands. Fortunately for him, he soon figures out the real object of their game and spends most of the night in a state of perpetual fear.
The movie is clearly a relatively low-budget affair, but it doesn’t rely on flashy explosions or big set-pieces, so budgetary constraints aren’t really an issue. It’s set in and around Edinburgh and it mostly concentrates the action in the lower-rent areas. The acting is perfectly OK and I liked the way they didn’t have everyone doing Scottish accents; there are plenty of British and even American accents in there too. The story is a little weak but it’s an interesting concept. The movie is short enough that it doesn’t seem to drag once the game of hide and seek starts. The motives of the bankers are mostly unexplained, but that’s not really a problem. It really has nothing special about it to help it stand out from the hundreds of other average thrillers out there, but if you happen to be channel surfing and catch it on TV, it’s worth a watch.
My Rating: 
[ IMDB rating: 5.9 / 10 | IMDB link | Running time: 97 mins ]
