Off the Grid

Had so much potential. Soon as you see the bad guy, which is a cross between a B movie dracula and uncle fester who walks like he has a back problem you know it's going downhill. Beautiful back drops and scenery, good plot but the villain is awful and dont get me started on the awful centre greasy center parting they gave him. You will know what i mean when you see it.

The sheriff is equally bad, you just think seriously? Really? It's like it was directed by a primary school drama teacher who got fired for drinking on the job.

The "hero" isn't too bad apart from the cheesy scene in the bar. This could have been a great movie but you know exactly what's going to happen especially with the teenager. And how did this engineer suddenly have the skills of Arnie in Predator. Was he in the special forces before going into engineering? Good luck with this one.

I picked up Off The Grid thinking, "This could be good." This promised tension, action, and intrigue - all the ingredients for a decent watch. But what followed was one of the worst movie experiences I've sat through. And I've watched thousands.

The actor playing the "child catcher" was unintentionally comical - more pantomime villain than menacing threat. As for the so-called hero? Sure, he might look like a leading man, but any sense of screen presence or charisma was completely absent. A plank of wood might've offered more emotional range.

The plot? Barely there. The dialogue? Stiff and predictable. The pacing? Slower than a dial-up connection in 1998.

Do yourself a favour - stay clear.

You're welcome. ⭐

It was a relatively fun ride, nothing really original, there were some moments of doubt. At about 1 hour and 20 min in, I was getting a little impatient, in fact I started to doze off. Anyways... Simple linear story, nothing too far fetched, easy to follow, Greg Kinear was fine, Josh played his role well, but overall it was a typical action movie with the ever so over done payoff, if your bored... give it a watch but don't go into this expecting a wild non stop action ride. The only reason I gave it a 6 star was "it was fun" just enough to keep you watching. If it wasn't cast with the 3 decent actors, I probably wouldn't have continued.

Granted, I have to say that I figured that a movie with the likes of Josh Duhamel, Greg Kinnear and Peter Stormare would most likely prove entertaining, and thus I opted to watch the 2025 movie "Off the Grid" without ever having heard about it. Sure, the fact that it was a movie that I hadn't already seen also helped to sweeten the deal, adding to the fact that I would give the movie a fair chance.

Writer Jim Agnew didn't exactly put together the most exciting and riveting of storylines. Sure, it was watchable, but the pacing of the narrative served as an anchor around the foot of the movie, holding it back and making it a bit of a struggle to sit through 105 minutes of watching it. I wasn't particularly impressed with the contents of the script and storyline.

Aside from Josh Duhamel, Peter Stormare and Greg Kinnear, then I was only familiar with Michael Papajohn and David Lipper. The acting performances in the movie, despite the fact that the script wasn't particularly great, proved to actually be adequate.

While "Off the Grid" was a semi-watchable movie, it is hardly a movie that will grace my screen a second time.

My rating of director Johnny Martin's 2025 movie "Off the Grid" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

This movie felt like MacGyver, Lost, The Fugitive, and a telenovela got trapped in a writer's room, then someone sprinkled in Predator (1987) and No Country for Old Men and said, "Perfect - now let's shoot it like a high school project." The plot is all over the place, characters make baffling decisions, and the tone swings wildly between gritty survival thriller and melodramatic soap opera. Visually, it tries to be cinematic but ends up chaotic - like someone discovered both slow motion and shaky cam and used them nonstop. It's oddly entertaining in a "what am I even watching?" kind of way. If you're looking for logic or cohesion, abandon all hope. It's either a misunderstood masterpiece or a beautiful disaster. Still undecided.