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    Numb

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    “Numb” is a small film that I’m eager to recommend, and not only because it’s from my home country of Canada. It isn’t being advertised much, but if you spot the poster in the theatre lobby, go buy yourself a ticket. It’s a tight thriller that kept me guessing all the way through. I liked it a lot.

    This movie is only an hour and ten minutes so pardon me if I have a synopsis that’s a bit more vague than usual. I really don’t want to give too much away. Will (Jamie Bamber) and Dawn (Stefanie Von Pfetten) have run out of luck and money. They’re going to lose everything unless a miracle shows up. When they stumble upon a map that leads to millions stolen from a bank, they are forced to ally themselves with two hitchhikers (Aleks Paunovic as Lee and Marie Avgeropoulos as Cheryl) to recover the treasure.

    The premise of the film is somewhat out there, but that’s ok. You won’t mind because it’s setting up the pieces necessary to create a tense thriller. It’s a lot of fun to watch because the probability of something going wrong keeps escalating. You sense it right from the start. I don’t even know if people hitchhike anymore because we’ve seen it go wrong so many times in the media. Even if you were perfectly innocent and looking for that ride to Chicago, odds are the person who picked you up would accidentally tune in on some random radio broadcast announcing that “The hitchhiker slasher” is on the loose and smother you while you’re taking a nap just so to be safe. In a movie like this, you never know if the scenarios you imagine are legitimately plausible, or if you’re just being paranoid.

    Your eyes are going to be twitching, looking back and forth trying to figure out if anyone is up to anything shady… and then it gets even more intense when you realize what the title of this film refers to. The numbness refers to another danger that could either bring these people together (assuming that they are looking for the first opportunity to stab each other in the back) or drive them apart. This is a survival thriller on top of being a bottle film outdoors. It kept my mind racing. I could never get out of my head the idea that these people don’t really know where this money is, if anyone else is after it or if it’s even there. What if they go through this huge ordeal and there’s nothing left, this whole map was a joke? I could never relax while watching “Numb” because it keeps piling on all of these potential disasters. It becomes almost like a horror film where you know the killer is going to jump out and gut one teenager, but the question is who, when and how?

    This movie is really only about two things. Firstly, it’s the suspense/tension between the characters. It’s also about survival. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that at some point, something is going to go wrong. There wouldn’t be much of a movie if there were no conflict. This story is about the strange relationship that desperation and greed have. When you’ve got nothing, you will claw at anyone and anything to get higher up and you’ll defend what you grab like a wild animal. When you’ve been desperate for as long as these people and the stuff you can get your hands on is as appealing as millions in cash, how do you prevent yourself from getting sucked into a feeding frenzy from which no one will escape?

    This movie is nice and lean. There’s no fat to trim. In a movie that wants to play with your head, that’s the way to do it. You know just enough about these people to have a vague idea of how much you can trust them, but you never know so much that you can predict what they’re going to do next. You’re always second-guessing your intuition. It’s only an hour and ten minutes long but it doesn’t feel short because you’re so tense and so unsure about what is going to happen next. The movie begins by telling you the fate of one character and then flashing back to the beginning of the story but honestly, I was engulfed in the story so deeply that I forgot about that completely until it came right back to finish that circle. The special effects were very well done. I liked the performances and the bare-bones approach to this story too.

    If “Numb” is not coming to a theatre near you, it wouldn’t cost you much more to simply order it on DVD and watch it with friends. Trust me, it’s worth taking the chance. I went into this movie cold and I was not disappointed in the least. “Numb” is a movie that’s worth keeping an eye out for. (Theatrical version on the big screen, March 5, 2016)

    8
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    adamwatchesmovies@  16.3.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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