Hide and Seek

Rhys-Meyers is and OCD guy looking for his missing brother when he gets into an underground realm of squatters that starts to move in on his own family's safety. It's not who you think it's gonna be...which is fun. But the story is a smidge disjointed.

The suspense was fine, as well as the acting. There were some nice little twists now and there and it was not predictable.

Is someone messing with the main character or is he messing with others? Is he losing his mind? Who is the villain and what do they want? Enough to keep you guessing til the very end.

However, it feels like it was meant to be a three hours movie and somehow it got cut into less than hour and a half.

As a result, there are subplots that literally go nowhere, underdeveloped characters and motivations, background stories that never get explored in a meaningful way, very vague hints at something possibly important about the characters and so on.

Haven't seen the original Korean movie yet, but this one kinda makes want to do it in order to place all the missing pieces together.

The great joy of watching, or reading, a mystery, thriller, or psychological what-not is what we believe the outcome will be...and what it actually is. We think of the 'clues' the incidents that should lead to the eventual conclusion, the confusions, the misconceptions... 'Hide and Seek' is exasperating. You can guess along with the muddling plot and actions. You try to go along with it...You try to find logical conclusions..... Not this time!!! The plot meanders all over the place, and it is not a spolier to say.....'What the hell is going on'? We are left with questions that only indicate that somewhere along the line, an hour of plotwas losston the editing room. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? I defy you to answer the basics.

I guess the filmmakers thought that "mystery" movies were supposed to remain a mystery after you got done watching them. About halfway through I lost track of the plot. I still don't get it. I thought the movie was supposed to be about the guy looking for his brother. Was there really a brother? Did he ever find him? Also about halfway through this movie starts to be about the crazy lady. Why? Did she have anything at all to do with the main character or his brother, or did they just decide that the main plot was too boring and bring her in to add interest? I wish someone would explain the plot. You can put "spoiler alert" if you want, but how could anyone spoil this awful movie?

All that I knew about the 2021 movie "Hide and Seek" as I sat down to watch it was that the movie was a thriller and that it had Jonathan Rhys Meyers on the cast list.

So I wasn't sure what to expect from writer and director Joel David Moore here with this 2021 thriller. In fact, you could say that I entered the movie with an open slate, so Joel David Moore had every opportunity to entertain and thrill me with his movie.

But ultimately that was not to be. Sure, "Hide and Seek" was watchable, but the storyline was just not particularly convincing or entertaining, and too many things didn't really make much of any sense. So as the movie came to an end, I have to say that I was left with a sense of 'was that truly it?'.

The acting performances in the movie were good, and I have to say that Jonathan Rhys Meyers really carried the movie quite well. Sue Jean Kim put on a good performance as well, just a shame that she wasn't given a more prominent role with more screen time. It was good to see Joe Pantoliano in the movie, though he was not given much of any screen time really.

For a thriller then "Hide and Seek" just didn't really cut it for me. The movie was too generic and held back by a storyline that made little sense a lot of the time. So if you enjoy thrillers, there are far better options readily available out there.

My rating of "Hide and Seek" lands on a very generous four out of ten stars.