Die (2010)Yes, I'm back with my Netflix and this popped up immediately so I thought eh, what the hell - can't be the worst movie I've seen this month... and holy hell it wasn't! Now at first glance you could dismiss this thing as a cheap Saw knock-off but then again... it is worth a look. I wouldn't really call this horror more than psychological thriller. Where Saw was all about Jigsaw and how he was 'teaching' people the value of life (by killing them, I never understood that part), he was also the one doing all the talking, telling us what each person felt about their life and how they got there. This lets each of the characters do their own exposition and we get to see exactly what brought them to the lowest of the low state they are currently in.
It begins in 1976 where a young boy named Jacob witnesses his father at the table with a gun and a single die. He makes his son roll the die and when it comes up three, puts three bullets in the chamber and plays a little Russian roulette. He loses.
Now we get our six downtrodden people from different backgrounds. Their common sin, if you will - they've all tried to kill themselves in one way or another as the final solution to a life they can no longer take. Lisa, a gambler who lives for the cards, Robert, a millionaire philanthropist, Mark, a cop reaching the end of a gruesome career, Zach, a brilliant psychiatrist, Melody, a teenager battling drug addictions and Diane, a caring nurse. Each of these wake up in glass cells, not knowing how they got there and of course, why. We then meet a fellow who has observed all of them, knows their histories, and is determined to 'start their lives over' - that is, if the roll of the die allows them to live. Yes, this of course is Jacob, the boy who watched his father die. That's pretty obvious from the start. As the movie progresses the partner of the cop who was taken is desperate to find him and other missing persons that have all been taken that week. She's a little obsessed, because her father, after disappearing, ended up being found, having slit his wrists. She's never accepted that, even though the Chief keeps insisting she stop. That's pretty standard police-movie stuff. One detective determined to solve a crime even though her boss keeps insisting there isn't one.
Back to our six 'contestants' who will be facing a series of 'trials'. Robert is up first - he's strapped to a chair and the cop has to roll the die to decide how many bullets go in a gun to shoot at him to see if he lives or dies. He dies. He's put in rags and posed in front of his own building, and ruled a suicide but of course our detective doesn't believe it. The second woman, Lisa is made to take a drug in a dose again determined by the die - she lives but is still imprisoned. The third, Melody is given something and ends up naked in the streets - but alive. She says nothing about what happened. That's when the detective notices burn marks on her wrist. She checks back on her dad's file - he was found with burn marks on his wrists. |
| Mark |
By now, the captive cop sees the same burn marks and asks the others and sure enough, each has been marked 1-6, as on the die. More trials come up, and needless to say, all die - until we only have Mark the cop and Lisa. Mark fakes hanging himself to get Jacob in the cell and takes his gun - but it's empty. He then notices dark figures standing all around the room - Jacob has quite the following. The detective at the same time is discovering that Jacob spent a lot of time in mental institutions, wrote a book about living according to the toss of a die and gathering 'disciples' in a sort of fate-driven cult. As Lisa moves to escape Jacob offers Mark the chance of becoming one of them, because he has survived up to now and is considered 'reborn'. Jacob has misinterpreted Mark's true feelings - he's getting older, extremely weary and he tells him 'I'm more afraid of living than dying'. He then commits suicide which sends Jacob into a hissy fit, I guess because he's reliving his dad's suicide. Lisa comes back, having found another gun, but before she can do anything the detective who finally has all the pieces (she thinks) shows up with a SWAT team and Lisa is taken away. Jacob and the other figures fade into the dark of the building, which turns out to be the basement of the only place he kept of his wealthy family's properties - a casino.
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| Lisa |
The movie ends in Rome, where a ritual is taking place with Jacob as the leader of course, and the person greeting the 'newbie' is our teenage Melody, who apparently has taken up Jacob's offer of being a disciple. Oh, and we find out why the detective's boss kept trying to keep her out of this case and telling her to go home - his wrist is also marked. Those who survive, keep the secret or die I guess.
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| Jacob |
What made this movie interesting and not your basic get them all together and kill them one by one movie was definitely the exposition of each of the characters. You got to see how they felt, what they had to deal with, why they were brought so low, and what would make them (even the millionaire) want to die so badly. Despite it being a 'director's cut' and unrated, there is actually not that much violence and little gore, so again, a halfway decent psychological thriller. Not bad for my Netflix comeback.
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