Ruptured Reasoning: ATM (2012)

by Chris Marshall:

Director: David Brooks

Cast: Alice Eve, Josh Peck, Brian Geraghty

Netflix Synopsis: When three coworkers make a midnight stop at a glass-enclosed ATM after their Christmas party, they find themselves trapped by a menacing man outside. Soon they're fighting for their survival as the temperature plunges and the man toys with them.

Chris: I’ve watched a lot of movies this year. Like, a whole lot. Most were quite good, thanks to The Oscar Project, where even the “bad” entries tended to be of a pretty high caliber. I’ve seen some really bad ones as well (I’m looking at you, Project X). But purely in terms of realism, Project X looked like a documentary in comparison to ATM, which hinged entirely on the stupidity of its main characters.

This isn’t exactly a revolutionary phenomenon. Roger Ebert, in his Little Movie Glossary, refers to it as the Idiot Plot: “A plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie would be over.”

I assume that the writers of ATM came up with a premise—what if three people got trapped in an ATM vestibule by a crazed killer?—and started to run with it, only to realize that, about halfway through, it would actually be pretty easy to get away. Rather than starting from scratch, they just decided to make everybody stupid.

I had seen the trailers a few months earlier, and even then, I wondered why they didn’t just run away. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the whole film would explain all the extenuating circumstances. But no, they don’t run because… well, because if they ran, they would get away, and that wouldn’t be very interesting.

"PLEH?! Why did you write PLEH?!"

For those of you not in the know, our three “heroes” stop at an ATM on the way home from a Christmas party, and through a miraculous set of contrivances, they end up trapped in there about a hundred yards away from their car with no cell phones. And it’s around -5 degrees out. That’s cold, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think it would put them in imminent danger of freezing to death in a couple of hours, especially when wind isn’t a factor.

So anyway. There’s a crazy killer in a parka, and just to let the trapped folks know he’s serious, he walks over and brains a homeless guy with his bare hands. That’s their first chance to escape, for the record, because dude spent a good 30 seconds smashing the homeless guy’s head open.

You know, because I don’t think anybody should actually watch this, I’m going to go ahead and spoil it. The killer spends days (weeks? months? years?) planning out these attacks, analyzing every angle of the parking lot, every security camera angle at the ATM, and everything. But when he shows up to the crime scene, he relies completely on weapons found in his victims’ cars. He brought literally nothing with him except the parka.

And man, can you imagine if even one of the main characters had their cell phone on them, as most everyone does at most all times? That would have put a real hitch in his plans. Or if they would have taken advantage of the dozen opportunities they had to escape with ease? Or maybe he just scopes out hundreds of these ATMs, waiting for some complete morons to show up.

I’ve read some people online claiming that it would be way harder in real life if we were actually there. To this, I say you are wrong. I might not have survived, but I at least would have died in a less stupid way than the characters in this film did.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, you think. If you truly believe that, then I invite you to watch it for yourself and see firsthand the idiocy exhibited by these people. It will be quite a revelatory experience.

Justin: Yeah, this one was really stupid. What amazes me, though, is how obsessed the movie is with closing the conventional plot holes that horror movies have. Things like, “Why don't they use their cell phone?”, “Why would they even go there?”, “Why didn't they do this earlier?”. All of these explanations are long and tedious. The filmmakers became so obsessed that they seem to have forgot how many plot holes their own movie opens.

Like the killer showing up with nothing and relying solely on the tool kit that is in the trunk of the main character. What if it had been me? Would the killer be forced to murder everyone with an old pair of shoes and a road atlas? See, pretty dumb.

So instead of writing a straight up review, let's compare what would happen in real life and what happens in the movie.

Situation 1: Our hero has to drive the girl he's finally asked out for a date AND his douchebag buddy home.

Real Life: “Oh, I promised to give you a ride? (Turns to girl) You cool with that? Let's go.”

ATM: Literally three monologues on how our hero has already promised a ride to douchebag. Funny, the girl seems to have absolutely no problem with it, but this seems to be the most difficult social situation our hero has ever been in.

Situation 2: This is a horror movie, so our characters can't have their cell phones. How does someone not take their cellphone into an ATM vestibule?

Real Life: “My battery's dead” OR “My phone is already out of my pocket. I'll just lay it here in the center console.”

ATM: “Oh dude, your battery is almost dead. I'll make this incredibly easy toss from the back seat of our car to the front seat so you can charge it. WHOOPS! For some reason I threw it at you so it landed on the floor. DON'T PICK IT UP WE'RE MOVING!”

Situation 3: All three characters must be trapped inside the vestibule. Otherwise one of them will just drive away.

I don't remember this part of the movie.

Real Life: “Hey, could I borrow some money? My card's messed up. Oh, our third passenger wants to grab some money too? Awesome! Let's go.”

ATM: First one person goes up to the ATM. Then the other goes because the first doesn't have any money. Then the third gets bored, or maybe scared, and wanders inside.

Situation 4: The car can't be locked because the killer is an idiot who literally brought nothing to help him with his criminal masterplan.

Real Life: “I'm just running into the ATM. I'll take the keys.”

ATM: “I tried to lock your car but the clicker thingy wouldn't work. Oh, it's also low on batteries, like your cell phone. Funny how our whole lives revolve on whether or not we replace our batteries huh?”

Situation 5: You're trapped in an ATM vestibule and a murderer is tormenting you outside. In all the excitement you leave your ATM card in the machine and the machine sucks it inside to protect it.

Real Life: “There's a murderer out there!! I literally notice nothing else because my whole life depends on it.”

ATM: “Dammit! It ate my card. What a pain. How do you even get that back? Did you guys see that?”

Situation 6: A murderer has trapped you in a room with windows on three sides. Your only hope of escape is to run away. Luckily you can see the murderer through all these windows.

Real Life: “We're taking this in shifts. For the next hour you do NOTHING but keep your eyes glued on the killer wearing a huge parka. If he ever moves around to the back we've got a fifteen feet head start on him. That's when we'll make our break.”

ATM: “Wait! Where did he go? No, I wasn't looking because I was talking to you the whole time. Well I guess we can just wait until we see him again.”

This really could go on for ever. I had a friend named Clay who would get so frustrated at horror movies because the characters were so helpless. They never deal with the problem in front of them and instead just keep trying to run away. Well, Clay, you'll love this movie. Not only do the main characters do nothing to save themselves from their fate, but they don't even attempt to run away. Death row inmates strapped to the gurney make more of an escape attempt than these guys.