{"id":28441,"date":"2013-10-07T17:41:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T00:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=28441"},"modified":"2013-10-09T10:27:11","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T17:27:11","slug":"die-dominic-james-2010-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=28441","title":{"rendered":"Die (Dominic James, 2010): Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Mallarie Stevens<\/a>. Viewed on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we are more connected to perfect strangers than we think.\u201d\u00a0 When six such perfect strangers inexplicably find themselves locked in a row of dimly-lit cells, the mystery of their connection to one another becomes the focus of Director Dominic James\u2019 2010 psychological thriller, Die<\/span>.\u00a0 Lisa is a serial gambler who couldn\u2019t handle the responsibility of raising her child.\u00a0 Melody is a drug-addicted teen whose parents never gave her the love she needed.\u00a0 Mark is an experienced cop whose partner is out searching for him.\u00a0 Robert is a wealthy businessman and philanthropist.\u00a0 Diane is a nurse, devoted to both her patients and her religious beliefs.\u00a0 And Zach is a successful psychiatrist, under investigation for over-prescribing medication to a patient.<\/p>\n

As Die<\/span> brings audiences into the lives of these six individuals, quick cuts from the strategically-lit, almost sepia-tone \u201cprison\u201d to the bright colors of their everyday lives present contrast that is both visually appealing and provides insight into the film\u2019s tone.\u00a0 This engaging cinematography paired with a compelling story concept provides a solid foundation for an excellent film.\u00a0 This foundation, however, is simply not enough to raise Die<\/span> to any level above average.<\/p>\n

The six prisoners\u2019 background stories not only draw far too heavily on clich\u00e9s, they are also spread too thinly over the film\u2019s 90 minute runtime, making it difficult to truly connect with any of them.\u00a0 Die<\/span> does attempt to catch the viewer by surprise with several plot twists and curve-balls, but they are mostly too little, too late. \u00a0Sophia, the determined detective who resolutely pursues the mystery of the strangers\u2019 disappearances despite her captain\u2019s warnings to stop, seems better suited to an episode of Law & Order<\/span> (1990) than a feature-length film.\u00a0 Though her acting is perfectly acceptable, the script does not allow her any depth in which to develop, which is essentially true of the other characters as well.<\/p>\n

Jacob, the orchestrator of the six\u2019s imprisonment and the live-or-die game of chance that follows, has devised these \u201cTrials\u201d, as a direct response to his own childhood experience of witnessing his father commit suicide.\u00a0 But Jacob is not the typical depraved killer.\u00a0 Portrayed as more of a Jesus-like figure than a strong perpetrator, unoriginal dialogue and lack of a multi-dimensional personality make the higher-level religious concepts to which the story (and Jacob\u2019s true mission) alludes difficult to buy into.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t kill people who are already dead,\u201d preaches Jacob. \u00a0\u201cThey were prisoners of the lives they created for each other. I gave them a chance to be reborn.\u201d<\/p>\n

This idea of playing God is not at all new to the film world. \u00a0From Frankenstein<\/span> (1931) to Seven<\/span> (1995) to the wildly popular The Hunger Games<\/span> (2012), the concept of one human\u2019s (or a group of humans\u2019) control over the fate of other humans has always been prevalent in film, as well as literature. \u00a0Considering that gameplay is also at the core of this film (the six prisoners represent the six sides of a die and they each must roll a dice to determine the fate of another \u201cplayer\u201d), it seems reasonable to conclude that Die<\/span> is essentially just a watered-down version of the Saw<\/span> (2004) franchise films.\u00a0 While that may be true, Die<\/span> will still appeal to those who are intrigued by the psychological struggle of life versus death and the human will to survive, but want to skip the highly graphic violence and NC-17 rating of Saw<\/span>.\u00a0 Of course, those who find the challenge of figuring out why a group of strangers have been locked up together or how they will escape, have plenty of options.\u00a0 Exam<\/span> (2009) and the Cube<\/span> films (1997 and 2002) might be better ones to explore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Mallarie Stevens. Viewed on Netflix. \u201cSometimes we are more connected to perfect strangers than we think.\u201d\u00a0 When six such perfect strangers inexplicably find themselves locked in a row of dimly-lit cells, the mystery of their connection to one another becomes the focus of Director Dominic James\u2019 2010 psychological thriller, Die.\u00a0 Lisa is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2976,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2976"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}