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Would You Rather (2012)
Contrived and writing depth as deep as a puddle, this ended up as little more than a predictable second-rate torture porn.
my first red flag was roughly 10 minutes into the movie, after being spoon-fed everything i'd read in the movie description. i had pretty much zero doubt as to how the entire story would unfold, a result of both being blatantly told by some really contrived dialogue, and the fact that everything not directly relating to the main plot - playing a sadistic life-or-death game with only one winner, etc etc - was essentially non-existent.
ill elaborate on that point - the only thing we know about our protagonist, "Iris" (even the name feels fake, i have heard better porn star names. we'll call her Jane Doe from now on) is that she is the sole bearer of a predicament that she cannot possibly solve (read: afford) except for the dubious solution provided by the sinister millionaire antagonist (who i will reference from now on as Moneybags McEvil), who appears to be genuine and sickeningly benevolent . we never learn anything about anyone else in the entire movie except for when Jane Doe enters the room where the game takes place. two of the other contestants conveniently give us 5 second quips about all of the other contestants with varying levels of detail and familiarity that i frankly find hard to believe they have gathered in the short period of time they've been there.
the entire starting part of the next scene progresses literally exactly how you would guess any story as shallow as this would. Moneybags McEvil introduces himself as the gracious solution to all of their problems, nobody really knows what the game is or what's going on, but of course are sticking around, because, money. Cue the brief revealing of Moneybags McEvil's true nature, where he starts offering people wads of cash if they break their personal morals. as he does this he constantly forces out the most contrived evil/maniacal laugh ever recorded and berating them for taking money. this is where realistically, you'd think some characters would get the f*ck out of dodge, at least, argue or verbally demolish his incredibly feeble attempts to shame them ("you're so pathetic for taking this money i offered you to do that thing you don't like doing even when i was the one who invited you here to obviously jump through hoops for cash", or something along those lines). nobody makes a notable peep though, probably because all of the people in the room are vapid bags of meat that pretty much exist only to be tortured and killed, but we already gathered that after their delicious 5 second intros. i seriously wish i was making this stuff up.
after sh*t hits the fan and people start dying and actually get forced to choose between one predictable choice or the other (if you've actually made it this far into the film, you can try actually being entertained by trying to guess what the choices are before they are presented, but sadly even this gets old after you get it right for the 4th time), the rest really becomes a blur of second rate torture porn - even calling it torture porn is a stretch, it wouldn't even deliver on that if it was trying to (can't tell). they go through all the motions you'd expect..."we have to work together", "i'm here to win"; these lines feel like the supporting meatbag actors are just reading them for the first time. i get the impression that the actors were perhaps given zero freedom to try to work their dialogue into something palatable which is why we see the atrocious staccato conversations throughout the entire movie.
"Peter" (Ricky from trailer park boys) is my favourite throughout the whole "game - he genuinely looks like he is about to lose his sh*t laughing at how bad his lines are. i swear i saw him sigh with boredom after he stabbed an old lady in the thigh: "oh...i think i hit that artery we were talking about..."
the rest of the movie continues to go so far downhill i won't even bother with it. "Would You Rather" has absolutely no redeeming qualities, the dialogue is so poorly written and seemingly forced on the actors that even the best wouldn't be able to liven it up. the only things that are not readily available from the blatant spoon fed story would be just how individuals get tortured or murdered, and even from a purely slasher perspective these are still unimpressive.
i am genuinely serious when i say the most entertainment this movie gave us was from predicting every shoddy thing, from the plot events to when we'd hear Moneybags McEvil's crappy cackle. this movie is not worth the length of this review, but i'm hoping i managed to entertain those poor souls who lost 93 minutes of their life to this garbage.