Starring: Stephen Dorff, Jaime Foreman, Geoff Bell, Jaime Murray, Russell Smith, Bronagh Gallagher, Edward Baker-Duly, Hugh O’Conor

Directed By: Kit Ryan

Written By: Derek Boyle, Eamon Friel

Released: 2007

Grade: B

Botched is a heist film turned to a murderous rampage. It was actually filmed mostly in Ireland and Germany and has a non-Russian speaking cast. The film is almost completely spoken in English with a few Russian words spoken here and there, mostly when the characters are uncovering some of the artifacts that may lead them to finding an answer to the madness going on around them. Still not only are the performances believable and bring out so much in the very interesting characters, but it even has an offbeat feel to it that you might expect from a foreign horror comedy. It goes from very serious moments to the lighter moments where the dark comedy is exerted wonderfully alongside of bloody kills.

When Ritchie (Dorff) was young his family was desperate to escape Russia to have a better life in America. A crime family helped them do so, but this put their family in a lifelong debt. Ritchie is the one that ends up paying this debt. He has been involved in robbery after robbery, but now he is ready to get out. He wants to move on with his life since no part of him really wants to stay involved in this business. To pay his toll once and for all and to finally be free Ritchie has to steal one last thing. Unfortunately, this puts him in the last place he wants to be: back in Russia. He just wants to steal what he came for and get out, which is the plan. Things start to get a little messy when one of his partners, Peter (Foreman), gets caught up in the moment and murders a woman in the process. This is really just the start of their problems. They want to get in and out without anyone seeing them. However, an elevator load of people pile in, making their escape tricky. The elevator breaks down and they are stuck there as they reveal that they are criminals and one person has already been killed.

When the elevator kicks back on, they get off at the first floor they can. Peter decides that too many people know about the situation so to keep everyone in line he makes it in to a hostage situation. Peter and Ritchie find a room on the very dissolute floor and lock the hostages in to it. When they talk to the police through the radio they agree to send down one hostage if the police agree to stay away. They send a young boy and when he gets to the elevator a giant pair of scissors reach and snap his head off, sending it rolling to Peter. They learn that it wasn’t the cops after all who they were talking to. There is someone else on the floor that they are on. They don’t know who, but whoever it is has real danger in store for all of them. Soon the religious, Sonya (Gallagher), takes over, shooting Peter and leaving Ritchie and some of the other hostages, Anna (Murray), Boris (Bell), and Dmitry (O’Conor) locked in the room alone. They do manage to find a way out, but only to see that they might very well be stuck on this floor with a raging murder running around, quickly and brutally taking his victims.

The cast is very enjoyable and brings out a lot in the characters. Stephen Dorff does well in the leading role as Ritchie. He is very to the point as he is determined to get what he has to do done and get the hell out of Russia, which stays with him even when terror ensues. I did like that when the tension continued, he wasn’t stiff and emotionless but was able to open his heart and put others’ lives’ ahead of his own. Geoff Bell was one of the most enjoyable to watch as a security guard and an ex-military man. He referred to himself as the alpha male. He had a lot of fight and prided himself on that. His character, Boris held his military days as the best of his life as he truly got joy when he was fighting in the war. He was full of tactics and was happy to put them to work and gain a few new teammates. Bell really had the most direct dark comedy in his character aside from the killer himself. He has an almost sarcastic smirk and quirky spirit bursting through him. The way he carries himself reminded me of a much less demented version of Robert Englund’s Mayor Buckman in 2001 Maniacs. There is a very similar vibe you get with the two characters, but Boris is fighting against evil rather being the cause of the evil himself. Hugh O’Conor as the timid and very scared Dmity served as an opposite of Boris although they worked together very nicely. O’Conor put forth a terrified and unstable persona. It is really clear how fragile he is, yet he is put through more than almost anyone else. Watching his reactions and just what this does to him is quite humorous.

One of my other favorites was the killer himself played by Edward Baker-Duly. He looked like he was an evil demonic knight, off slicing away at the peasants. All of his weapons looked like they were straight out of the middle ages, which made his character pretty amusing. Even the size of him and the almost animalistic sound and movements of him added the horror element while also giving the audience a few laughs. Bronagh Gallagher gave us a convincing religious nut who used her beliefs to control others who were weaker and more vulnerable than her. Jaime Murray played a beautiful businesswomen and one of the most level-headed, intelligent, and compassionate characters.

I really have to applaud the writers, Derek Boyle and Eamon Friel, for really taking time on the characters as they clearly did. We have a wide variety of characters, many of whose deaths would be very tragic. We have a teenage boy, a gorgeous young successful businessman who is just about to reach her peek, a committed but struggling journalist who is still waiting for his big break, a war hero who has made it through 15 years of fighting and can’t see letting this be the one that defeats him, and devoted women of God who believe they will be protected from all evil that might be soon attacking them. Even Ritchie is a sympathetic character. Although he is a thief, he is not a killer. This is his last commitment and then him and his family will finally be free. Also, if he doesn’t make it out of there with what he came for, he will die anyway, showing he has a bigger struggle and more at stake. Anyone who dies will be dying before they reach full fulfillment in life. The writers worked the tragedy aspect in to make things seem more terrifying, yet they also make the characters more than a way to get sympathy from the audience. They all have very fun, interesting, and different personalities that work wonderfully off of the other, truly making it very enjoyable just watching them and seeing how they will deal with the situation they are given. The script is very solid from the characters to the sharp dialogue to the surprising turn of events we are shown. The tables are turned quite drastically, not just because of the killer, but major character changes that occur. I would love to go in to it more, since this is the richest part of the film, but I won’t since it is all the most enjoyable when it comes at you as a surprise, putting forth another very interesting relationship that we didn’t even know existed.

The gore is very rewarding too as there are many graphic and bloody deaths and corpses left lying around. Some of these include a chopped off head rolling down the hall, using a truly disgusting rat as a weapon by setting it on fire, a 6 foot razor shooting up through a chair while someone is sitting on it, spheres cutting through the flesh of feet. Before they really know what is going on Ritchie finds the faces of two corpses that are still warm plastered on to the wall and framed. The soundtrack is pretty amusing too and adds just the right touch to the film. There is one scene when the knighted killer is chasing one of the victims and there is high paced polka sounding music during the chase scene, making it seem cartoonish. When being chased by a medieval man from the dark ages, you have to put some comedy in there. Also, later in the scene the killer chases his victim to a chair surrounded by piercing spheres. When one of these spheres stabs in to a foot, a strobe light dispenses multiple neon colors and flashes while some cheesy 80’s music plays. Towards the ending is one of the most priceless scenes though. It turns out all of the security men are watching two office workers having sex on the copy machine. Seconds later dozens of dead corpses and gallons of blood pour down on them, nearly filling the whole room. Botched uses the right amount of suspense, character development, irony often through quirkiness, and surprising events offering us scares, meaning, and laughs, giving us a very fun and interesting horror film.