The first 20 minutes of ATM play like a particularly bad romantic comedy, with three dialogues introduced by the actors so empty and immature that they are downright indecent to listen to. We have David (Brian Geraghty) as a young investment banker. There is a friend and assistant, Corey (Josh Peck), a popular, welcoming boozehound, who brings David closer to the end. He wanted to look for the girl. This would be Emily (Alice Eve), who took a job with another company. This is David’s latest case. So he takes her to an office Christmas. In the middle of the night, as Emily is hailing a cab, David offers to drive her home. Corey, the annoying leech, walks because he has no money for a cab. On the ride, he tells David to make a machine under the roof when he wants to withdraw money so they can stop at yet another all-night pizza joint.
The three find themselves inside a bank machine, and this is when the thriller portion of the film begins. Unfortunately, this change in tone doesn’t enhance the dialogue much, and it sure as hell does nothing for the plot, theme, or characters. As the discovered that the Korean card was defective, all three notice a figure standing far from the door. His face is hidden under a large hooded parka. For a time, they stand and watch all that is happening. David, Emily and Corey are nervous. He cannot enter, because the door can only be opened by the oscillation of the engine through the electronic lock. Should they call the police? They can not; Aemilia is the only one among them who has a cell phone and left it in the car. the hooded figure turns and spots the homeless man with the dog. To show that he is serious, he goes up to the homeless person and hits his bloody head on the cold asphalt.
So begins the clumsy psychological-testing cannon, which often shows shaky logic and serious gaps in contention and probability. David and Emily learn that when Corey’s card fails, the only way to get in is if the door is unlocked. Sure enough, David can open it without using his key. They think that the killer outside does not know this. Maybe it isn’t. Although the three trapped victims will often open the door and call for help within line of sight, it’s fair to say that at some point they’ll have to do everything on their own pull the door open But he seems too busy using tools and levers to try and pry the door open. Eventually the heat goes off, and so the three victims spend the rest of the film freezing – which is surprising because we so rarely see the fog breathing from their mouths.
Of course, the caracal man will kill a few other opportunistic and unlucky passers-by before the sun finally rises. Meanwhile, David, Emily, and Corey desperately search for a way to get the authorities’ notice. The girl tries to write the word “help” on the window with her lipstick before going to the bank machine and punching in David’s PIN number. Apparently, he was heard to do this at some point in order to somehow wake up the police. David tries to hit one of the two machine guns with the trash, hearing a similar rumor about the police arousing. When the hooded man finally floods the kiosk with fire hoses, it is certain that the only course of action left is to set off the alarm sprinkler. I’ll let you work through the logic of this idea. Don’t think too much about it now.
The action is sometimes interrupted by states of mental decline, interrupting panic and fear into paranoia and mistrust. Especially David and Corey; they became friends after me. Without a plausible premise and a decent screenplay, you’d think Geraghty, Eve, and Peck would have a little more difficulty convincing us that their characters are in a state of emotional breakdown. Alas, their plays are knocked around the scale by an amateur high school production. At this stage, we don’t care much about their characters, or, rather, their lack of almost any sense. Consider the scene after Corey tries to escape and is injured in the process. With the hooded man and the front occupied from behind, David and Emily leave the opportunity. and so they do. They spot Corey and arrest him… in and out?
An insatiable, maddening end drives us all to supply us with everything but reason. When a thriller goes this route, it tends to be that the filmmakers are attempting some twisted existential metaphor. I think this is a simple case of laziness. Despite this, the film keeps the audience guessing through the end credits, which feature dramatic close-ups between cut-out plastic sheets overhead projector and schematic diagrams. In case you’re wondering, the movie started pretty much the same way. A device device. how charming ATM is a movie that is submitted on a basic level of logic, so it is a guess too much to be expected to be redeemed in any way by dialogue, location, theme, or performance. Is it just me, or is there something wrong inside that I’m paying for a Christmas movie at the beginning of spring?
(www.atatheaternearyou.net)
