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.”
