User Reviews

After seeing the trailer I was super stoked, the trailer was so dark and it looked like it was going to be an amazing movie. The movie started off in a little bit of confusion for me, wasn't in chronological at all, which in some movies add suspense and mystery, however it mostly made me confused. Further on in movie I felt that a classic story like this, the poor jealous against the rich cocky people, but yet with a little twist. The story in my mind could have made this movie one of the best this year but yet they came up pretty short.

For the acting, I was extremely surprised about the performance of the former 'gossip girl'-actor Keven Zegers, he was the one thing that kept the movie good. He was perfect for the role as the dark yet intelligent conspirator. As for the others I do feel that some of them had an adequate performance but a lot of the times the dialogues seemed strained. Laura Vandervoort was obviously in it only to play the spoiled, helpless beauty, which was done okay.

To sum it up, it was an enjoyable movie, definitely watchable for a regular night but don't expect anything close to 'the movie of the year' or month for that matter. But I still give it 6, much due to the fundamental story, smartness and yet again surprisingly convincing acting from Zegers.

Overall the plot was quite interesting with numerous twists thrown in to keep you attentive. The characters were well portrayed and the acting was where it needed to be. Though there were a few scenes where emotions came across as forced (this could be my harsh critical view over-bearing). The storyline was well paced and I didn't feel bored at any point apart from a few noticeable errors in the continuity which put me off slightly. The small discrepancies in the storyline that, been explained or left out, would have made the film at least a 7/10. The protagonist (Kevin Zegers) for me was the star of the film. The character was believable and engaging and along with the narration, provided a great deal of insight into the mind of someone on a mission.

Paul is a dis-likable young man with a plan. His mother can't afford her medication (doesn't Canada have nationalized heath care?) and they're repossessing her house. He needs money right away. He hatches a complex kidnapping plan which is supposed to be brilliant, but which is, in fact, fairly stupid. Only the intervention of the script writers allows this plan to succeed in the end.

*SPOILERS*

Paul recruits two psychopathic morons to assist him in his crime. Together they kidnap three adult children of some rather shady rich guys and demand a million from each parent be transferred to an offshore account. The old rich guys are obviously corrupt, though what business they're in isn't clear. These old miscreants are played by some well-known and accomplished actors, but the actors playing the young kidnappers are not so good. Anyway, as criminals they continue to make stupid mistakes, leaving fingerprints, making calls and just doing stupid things. Other reviews here have listed some of the blunders these idiots make which in the real world would land them in prison in a New York minute. Our protagonist doesn't intend for his accomplices to come out of it alive and he kills one of them personally. The girl accomplice gets kicked to death by the boy accomplice for no reason except he's a homicidal maniac. Among other contradictions is the improbability that two escaped hostages would be able to hike several miles through dense woods at night or that the ill-fated sidekicks would be able to track them.

Then we come to a hole in the plot big enough to drive a minor asteroid through: after money has been transferred to the offshore account Paul calls up the fathers and tells them their children are free (actually one is already dead and two have escaped) and just not to make any phone calls or answer the phone for the next hour or so. So the dim-witted dads just sit there and don't answer the phone for the next hour as the surviving children desperately attempt to call. And of course they don't phone the police. What? These guys are supposed to be smart, though crooked, businessmen. Doesn't it occur to them that there's no possible way the kidnapper could know if they're using the phone? They don't even look at caller ID to see who's calling them!

This is almost a credible thriller, if you park your brain at the door, but the ending is abysmal. Paul, the mastermind of the kidnapping, is supposed to be the entitled one, you see. He deserves the money because rich guys are always corrupt and he needs it more than they do. So in the end he gets away with 2 million and he's supposed to be the hero because he had such a smart plan. He only committed enough felonies to get life in prison. He murdered his friend and engineered a kidnapping, but he's supposed to be the hero, despite the fact that's he's an extremely unlikable pratt. Somebody in these review pages suggested that this was a right-wing scenario. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is pure leftist, entitled generation, narcissistic nonsense. "Occupiers" will love it because it sticks it to the rich guys, I mean, Paul represents the 99%, one of the liberals' beloved victims who isn't doing it out of greed but to obtain justice for his ailing mom and see that the rich bastards pay their fair share. Isn't 'social justice' what it's all about?

This review is essentially for anyone who has already seen the film, and thought it was amazingly intelligent, well done, and coherently put together. The end of the film presents us with a picture of finality, that our main protagonist pulled off the perfect crime, and got away with it without any suspicion or investigation against him, and made a slick easy 2 million dollars that was untraceable. If you accept this premise, then you accept that all the law enforcement investigating the case, as well as those involved had the intelligence of 5 year olds.

One of the most damning aspects I think, is the idea that no link could be established between the main protagonist and his 2 accomplices who he was friends with, the girl, who he was in a relationship with. To believe this, you have to believe that of the many people who had seen his 2 accomplices on university campus which is where he met them, NO ONE had seen him with them, and more than that, think about how they would have had to have not mentioned him to ANYONE they know; no mention of him to ANY of their friends or family, or on sites like facebook, twitter, phone records even; NOTHING; no link whatsoever. All it would have taken was a tiny link which is hard to believe didn't exist, especially in the case of his female accomplice who was in love with him, and he would be facing a very fervent investigation down his throat.

With that impossible hurdle aside, we come to the many flaws in the execution of the crime itself. Firstly, he gives his male accomplice a gun with blanks, yet he gives his female accomplice a gun with real bullets, and it just so happens she ends up shooting one of the 3 hostages, contrary to his plan. This firstly, looks very staged, and secondly it makes no sense that he would risk giving one of them an armed gun, and the other not. In terms of evidence of him being in the house, you see him gloveless touching quite a lot of things and the house does NOT get burned down, not to mention tire tracks of his own car in the surrounding dirt road areas which would have made his story inconsistent. In addition to this, the 2 remaining hostages DO hear the protagonist talking over the phone, yet they don't recognize his voice when he comes to the door. Picture being blindfolded, terrorized, and the only thing you hear is this man's voice. I guarantee that voice will be running through your head for weeks.

Now the incidentals, the worst of which is the female accomplice being killed by the male accomplice. Even though the guy was unstable, supposedly she was still his best friend, so although not impossible, it doesn't make any sense that he would kill her so glibly. Why this is important, is because if HE didn't kill her, the protagonist who is somewhat being presented in a sympathetic way would have had to kill his own girlfriend. This seems too staged and convenient, and none of it really seems to mesh. As a side note, I found it somewhat tacky how the third father ends up forking over a million dollars, when at this point he has seen or heard NO actual evidence of what his friends are saying. THEY could be scamming him for all he knows.

I am just a random idiot of average intelligence, so if these glaringly obvious inconsistencies are obvious to ME, just imagine how much more evidence and suspicion a highly intelligent crime investigator would have against our protagonist, and keeping in mind only a SINGLE ONE of my points would have had to catch someones attention for a large investigation to be launched against our protagonist causing them to realize "AHA! He was the son of the butler, now we have a connection. Now we have a motive. Now we know how he acquired access to the house. Now we know how he knew about this gathering". We the viewers in the end are supposed to believe that he was foolish enough to commit so many very simple errors, yet clever enough to work out an elaborate money laundering scheme and phone location rerouting system. I think not, and then the worst thing films like these can ever do is done by dipping the viewer's nose in the "cleverness" of this very flawed plot premise in the closing narration, rather than serving up a more ambiguous ending.

If you ignore the message this film has, it is quite enjoyable. There is suspense, a few interesting twists and some good performances. However, this all pales in comparison to the film's message.

Spoilers incoming: Here we have a smart young man who wants to be one of the rich elite, but does instead come from a family on the precipice of poverty due to the mothers illness. Their house is being foreclosed and the protagonist can't get a job he feels he is worthy of.

The protagonist then hatches a plan to get rich. He plans to screw over his "girlfriend" and her friend, two unstable poor people, one an emo chick and the other an anarchist. He plans to kidnap the grown children of some very rich people and ransom them for millions of dollars.

The kidnapping goes smoothly up until the emo chick kills one of the victims. Then the victims escape and the emo chick and the anarchist both end up dead; chick killed by the anarchist in a fit of rage after she couldn't find escapees and the anarchist by the protagonist to cover his tracks; the anarchist has a history of suicide attempts.

So the film ends with the protagonist, a murderer (anarchist), kidnapper and accessory to murder (rich kid, emo chick arguably), scot-free with millions of dollars in hand.

Message is basically the right-wing political dream: screw over the poor and defenceless (the emo chick and the anarchist needed help, but were instead unscrupulously used in a terrible manner), protect the rich (whoops one got killed, that is the real tragedy in this film) and run grinning to the bank. I hate this film with all my heart. 1/10

The Entitled began well, with excellent cinematography helped by some aerial shots for the opening.

The characters are all, unfortunately, written very shallowly, with almost no information provided beyond what is seen on screen.

The plot concerns a young man, Paul, who is seen at the beginning struggling to get a job (even though he is perfectly qualified) and providing for his ill mother.

Very quickly, the movie introduces Paul's plot to kidnap the silver-spoon-fed children of a trio of rich men. He himself looks like the rich men's children (college age, attractive, great hair), but apparently without the money.

His accomplices are another college-age guy and girl. One seems to be his girlfriend (who doesn't seem to be his type) and the other is a Columbine-killer type.

The movie begins to fail very quickly once the three young people are kidnapped. The main kidnapper is portrayed as very detail-oriented and together, very purposeful, but he makes mistake after mistake that drive the rest of the story, making it very contrived.

SPOILERS FOLLOW The main kidnapper, Paul, is describes as very detail-oriented and his plot is intricate and involves a bit of preparation, but once the plot begins, he sits around letting things happen which threaten his success unnecessarily.

His two cohorts are unstable, which he purposely knows, but he makes almost no effort to stop them from doing things to screw things up. Some of this unstable behavior turns out to have been acceptable, but there are some things that they do that he couldn't have foreseen but are played off as being foreseen by him.

For example, he tells his Goth cohorts that there is an explosive device at the location where the fathers of his kidnap victims are waiting for the return of their kids. His goth girlfriend sneaks down to where the 3 kids are being held and tells them of this. Later it turns out that there is no such explosive device. 2 of the kidnapped kids escape (because -- duh -- no one was watching them) and make a bee-line for where the parents are waiting to warn them of the impending detonation. This beeline keeps them off the road so that they don't see the main kidnapper driving on the road. SO -- we are expected to buy that Paul planned on lying to his cohorts about the device knowing that they will spill its existence to the kidnappees, knowing that they will escape with enough time to hope to get to their parents' location, knowing that they will have to go through through the forest because they don't have time to follow the road and get their in time, knowing that it will keep them from seeing him escape... but none of it mattering because there really was no explosive device and if they had just been kept locked up there would have been no need for the subterfuge.

Paul makes a point of giving his male cohort a 9mm with blanks, knowing that he would be trigger-happy. All of this is played off as having been part of his plan, that the intended to blame all of what happened on the two cohorts. But it is beyond intelligent belief to accept that he would have planned everything will so many details relying on the out-of-control behavior of the other two.

The kidnapping is effected by the girl standing in the middle of the road. Coming up on a girl standing threateningly in the middle of the road, the driver is, of course, inclined to stop his car and walk up to her, allowing the Columbine-type guy to "surprise" him with the shotgun (wait, wasn't he NOT supposed to have been given a gun with real ammo?) The 3 kids are taken to the mountain home of one of the other rich parents, which is just 2 miles from where the rich parents are staying in the other mountain home. They are put in a storage space beneath the house. They are tied up and basically NOT WATCHED. Occasional visits are made to them to provide proof of life and to intimidate them.

The kidnappers spend their time staring at an unchanging computer screen and playing violent First-Person Shooter video games. NO ONE is tasked with watching to make sure their kidnap victims do not escape.

Paul knows that his two accomplices are mentally unhinged, and makes a point of loading blanks into the pistol he gives the guy, but the guy at other times has the shotgun that IS properly loaded, and Paul hands the shotgun to the girl who promptly kills one of the hostages with it. For such a prepared plan, it reeks of poor planning, yet such a glaring plot hole drives the story forward.

He has given a pistol loaded with blanks to the other cohort. Later, when he tries to shoot one of the hostages with the gun, the man falls back as if hit but then gets up and runs away. He could have killed someone with it not realizing it was loaded with blanks by pressing it against their body or head. It simply should have been loaded with dummy rounds, which don't have any explosive force.

There are other numerous dangling plot points and unanswered questions.

END OF SPOILERS For a film that looks as good as it does on screen, and with good performances from the actors (although the kidnap victims are severely underutilized, especially Laura Vandervoort) it is decidedly disappointing that the story fails completely. With a running time of 1 hour, 25 minutes (without the end credits), there was ample time to flesh out the characters and fix the numerous plot holes. It seems to come down to lazy story-telling in the end.

The end result is a bad film, not worth watching.

movie starts off with a great aerial shot of what i believe is Ontario city which is totally misleading because the whole thing takes place is the deepest woods.

actors did quiet a good job although protagonist is very hard to like. he kisses his mother like 5 times in the first 10 minutes so nobody could miss the fact that he cares for her. also very hard to believe that his female accomplice could ever fall in love with him that much. they don't seem to have much in common.

scene which upsets me the most is the escape of the 2 left hostages. they walk out of the house like they are 5 year olds who try to sneak around moms back to get to the candy drawer. how could No one be watching them? they literally have nothing to do. one of them plays fallout 3 because he is so bored. to be fair fallout 3 is one of the best games ever developed.

of course this American dream thing plays along throughout the movie and subtly gets mentioned every now and then but in the end it doesn't seem to conclude in any way.

the emo male accomplice casually kicks her alleged good friend to death (or maybe not?) for no reason whatsoever like he slaughtered his opponents in fallout 3 earlier. at that point i began to wonder if i looked at the movie from a wrong perspective. maybe it was a comedy all along.

i kind of liked the dispute of the 3 fathers which on its own got me to watch the thing through. but also was disappointed by the reaction of one of the fathers after he realizes that his son died. could have given the story another nice twist.

Things don't go so well for Paul. He didn't manage to get a job, his mother is ill and he doesn't have money for medication and he still lives with his parents. Troubles is his life has made him to do an extreme thing and together with two friends kidnaps three rich students and demands a ransom from their father in order to release them. But the plan is not going how they planned because one of the prisoners dies and the rest manage to escape. The fathers of the three are at a mansion taking a break to relax but one of them is late so this is the reason why he's don is shoot, it could not ensure the kidnapper that he will pay him the money. The two are able to reach their parents but also one of the guys involved who has his own plans to escape clean even if this means to betray his friends.

The Entitled is an amateur movie in witch three inexperienced teens put up a plan beyond their powers and also this is the reason why it never worked. So, they keep them bound in the basement and instead of guarding them what are they doing? Playing on Playstation. Wow this is awesome. Also the girl that shoots that guy with a shotgun? That kind of weapon is not easy to handle but she had a very good accuracy and precision in her shot. Another Wow. And the three fathers didn't have so much responsibility since they never left the house, didn't contact the police, all they had to do is seat on the couch, wait for the telephone to ring, answer and write an account number and again to wait...but wait did I tell you already that this movie is idiotic?