The Loft - D

Rated R, 104 minutes
Wes's Grade: D

Mildly entertaining but dumb thriller "The Loft" full of plot holes and cliches

The basic premise of the new psychological thriller "The Loft" is that all men are lying scumbag and perverts and get what they deserve. A remake of a 2008 Belgian thriller called "Loft" that was filmed in 2011 and sitting on the shelf due to distribution problems, it's one of those it's-so-dumb-it's-entertaining movies that could be a guilty pleasure in the right frame of mind. Five married men (Karl Urban, James Marsden, Wentworth Miller, Eric Stonestreet and Matthias Schoenaerts, who reprises his role from the original film) share ownership of an upscale, urban loft, which they use to discreetly meet their respective mistresses. When the body of a murdered woman is found in that loft, the men begin to suspect each other of having committed the gruesome crime, as they are the only ones with keys to the premises. Through flashbacks, which are intertwined with scenes from the present, the entire story is unraveled. Directed by Erik Van Looy, who directed the original film, and co-written by Bart De Pauw and Wesley Strick, "The Loft" is a dumb, preposterous thriller featuring some of the dumbest but stylish men on the planet, and is one of the most misogynistic movies seen in some time, treating women in the very worst of ways (mostly as if they have no brains). It wastes a talented cast under a hackneyed, muddled script full types and cliches: the charming douche bag (Urban), the smart douche bag (Marsden), the psycho (Schoenaerts), the mysterious one (Miller) and the dumb ass (Stonestreet), none of whom are all that memorable, except for maybe Belgian actor Schoenaerts, convincing as the slimy lunatic. There are some murky plot contrivances, such as a note, a realtor and some DVDs, that are never really fully explained and predictable enough you'll likely know who did it before you get to the end - I for one, went with my gut feeling from the opening shot - and was still spot on. Yes, it's all rather silly and those flashbacks often confused me even more, but I kept watching and couldn't turn away, yet I was perplexed at how men this dumb were able to pull off having a "special loft" in the first place (or as one character puts it, " an f-pad"). Many men can be lying scumbag and perverts, but the ones who made the ridiculous thriller "The Loft" are just dumb if they expect us to actually buy any of it. Maybe worth a rental, if nothing else is available.