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| Release: 2012, Rating: R, Runtime: 84 min. |
I seem to be on a streak of picking, not what I would call bad movies, but just ones that seem overly long and boring, with missed opportunities. Take for example the movie I’m about to review today, Citadel. What could’ve been an interesting study in horror, with our main protagonist having a crippling fear of the outside world and the ever present fear of “creatures” around him, turns into a long drawn out film, in which not much happens until the end and even then, it’s just a bunch of malarkey. Let’s quickly step outside and get on with this review, before the outside world slowly closes around us…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: An agoraphobic father teams up with a renegade priest to save his
daughter from the clutches of a gang of twisted feral children who
committed an act of violence against his family years earlier.
I didn’t hear much about this movie, besides the fact that the guy suffered from agoraphobia and it dealt with a giant building. That’s basically what the movie is about, yet most of these reviews/previews failed to mention that the movie for the most part, takes place around the guy wandering from home, to other various places, with his baby in tow, all the while he acts really scared. It’s not until we get near the end, do we actually see anything that could resemble this being a horror movie. As for the ending, there was some creepy moments, but the movie fails to explain much in the way of what exactly happened to these “children” and why they look they way they do. So, the movie starts off slow and ends with an unsatisfying conclusion. Not a good sign.
Citadel certainly looks nice and is acted just as nice. We get a damn good performance from our lead,
Aneurin Barnard
. We also get a crazy role by the way of James Cosmo, who you may know from HBO’s Game of Thrones series. The movie doesn’t lack in the acting and visual department. It doesn’t look cheap and doesn’t feel cheap, which does make up for some problems.
I wish I could say Citadel was a masterpiece of the macabre and that it will haunt me to the end of time, but I can’t. It felt long and boring for a good portion of the film and once the somewhat satisfying scenes present themselves, I was left scratching my head (call me dumb, but I need some explaining, even just a little). I still would recommend checking it out, as it does look pretty and has a few scenes that might make the hair stand up on end. You just have to forgive that the movie’s 84 min run time, is filled with what feels like 65 minutes of nothingness.
Rating:
