Removal

Oz Perkins is best known as the writer/director of great recent films The Monkey and Longlegs, as well as the criminally overlooked The Blackcoat's Daughter. He is also a solid actor, and gives his best performance in 2010's Removal. Playing a rich, entitled monster can go wrong in many ways in the wrong actor's hands but Perkins absolutely knocks this out of the park. He also cowrote the screenplay, which is strong. Billy Burke gets top billing, but is very much in a supporting role. Perkins steals the show with a performance that deserves so much more attention than it will ever get. Highly recommended.

Removal (2010) is a horror crime thriller movie written by Osgood Perkins and the movie was plain awful.

Positives for Removal (2010): The movie has some recognizable people like Billy Burke, Mark Kelly, Emma Caulifield, Kelly Brook and Osgood Perkins himself. That's all I've got to say for the positives.

Negatives for Removal (2010): The movie is horribly paced with its 90 runtime. None of the characters mattered and they are just floating pieces of paper. The acting is really bad which it feels like in they're in the a school play. And finally, the movie is just really boring.

Overall, Removal (2010) wasn't the best day in office for Osgood Perkins, but thankfully everything was all up hill for Osgood Perkins as a filmmaker.

If NOT for the fantastic performance from Mark Kelly playing cleaner Cole Hindin (it helped that I had a huge crush on him during this, but that didn't alter my review), some good cinematography and a great soundtrack/score, 'Removal' (5/10) would be a complete waste. Why? Well, I can't say without spoiling the movie's over-used "secret" that I almost missed. I'll be honest, I usually see this coming, and I did kinda get it through the movie with the numerous clues. Part of the problem was the enormously bad acting from the movie's homeowner, Henry Sharpe (Oz Perkins). In fact, it was so obviously bad, you knew something was up. That said, again, Mark did such a good job, you'd think you were watching a Class A movie vs. the B-movie it was. It's worth a rental if you like those suspenseful (lite) thinkers involving a recovering and separated man, Cole, who witnessed his best friend, Eric, kill himself following Eric killing his own wife. Time has passed and now Cole's being summoned to conduct a solo yet "3-Person" cleaning job at a massive mansion overnight. Cole's suspicious of the owner's secretive nature regarding the quick/quiet job and the weird disappearance of his own wife. See it on the cheap.

The soundtrack is just noise in the background that doesn't fit with the movie! This isn't a movie with Billy Burke. He's only in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Oz Perkins is a really bad, over-the-top actor. I'm sorry I paid to see this movie. What a disappointment!

I'll never fully understand exactly how people rate films here; try as I might, the reasoning eludes me...

Anyway, DEFINITELY better than it's current 4.4 rating (especially if graded on the curve with so many other garbage films out there) Well written and acted; especially well directed. Very engaging and suspenseful. YES, we've seen this kind of thing before and NO, it's not the absolutely most original story out there, BUT, a well done film is a well done film, and that is SUPPOSEDLY why we rate and review films here, right...?

The primary actor does an excellent job as the calm 'Cleaner' Cole. There is very nice use of photography and editing and excellent use of sound design to add to the strong psychological mood of the film (with the very minor exception of unfortunately one of my personal neurotic irritations where pouring drinks and other consequential sounds are SO bloody loud, MUCH louder than they should be - GOD I hate that!)

So, if you like solid, competent, Psychological thrillers either with or without 'Twists' and as long as you appreciate good film making, then you should definitely enjoy this movie. BTW, that was the first time I've ever seen Oz Perkins (Anthony's son) who also co-wrote the excellent screenplay, and I felt that he carried the 'disturbed' torch well where his father left off. I would LOVE to see him do more Horror films, but he hasn't really done very many at all.

Overall the movie is strong on mood if a bit lighter on substance. Not anything earth-shaking, but a decent, well done, enjoyable Thriller...