It's not totally unusual for me to review a movie a friend recommends or dares me to watch. This movie was a little of both but I was glad to do it because it is TOTALLY different than the movies I've been watching lately. I mean, a movie about a group of young people who get in a completely ridiculous situation due to their own stupidity and then take and hour and a half to resolve it? Haven't seen anything like THAT. Not in a long time. In this movie Necrosis.... uh wait, I mean in this movie Frozen.... dammit wait again it's Thirst, right? No? Okay, okay in Wrecked... no that was Adrien Brody and I wouldn't watch him even if I was paid to.... oh yeah, 247°F! Yeah this one! In this movie in a totally OMG I never expected THAT move the movie begins by saying it's based on actual events. Clear out of left field that was.
We start with a whiny girl getting in a wreck with her fiancee' who dies and obviously had clout 'cause he only had to be in this movie for less than five minutes. Three years later, her friend and two guys do what every upper middle class group of young people do - they go to an island to enjoy a vacation alone in a cabin. Cell phone service? You know, I really couldn't tell you - I never saw one. Huh. Lots of alcohol though, and the promise of an exclusive party to last all night for the most important holiday in American history - May Day. You heard me. It gets worse. Much, much, worse. A certain reader of mine better not come within swatting distance of me or he's not going to be able to sit for a month...
Now Jenna's on 'my boyfriend's dead so I got these' medication but I guess they kill the buzz so she doesn't take them. Before they go to this exclusive party, they drink heavily and then, logically, decide to use the cabin's sauna. Just what alcohol soaked people need to do - nay MUST do. They invite pneumonia along with their wicked hangovers by alternating between the sauna and the lake, drinking in between. Finally Michael, Jenna's friend's stupid boyfriend gets so wasted he can't make it back into the sauna and passes out on the couch. The other three in the sauna are tired of him and decide to go to the party - they try to open the door. Guess what? No, guess. I'll wait. I've got lots of time. My DVR needs reprogramming and all my shows are lost so... go ahead. No?
At first they think ha ha funny joke. They push harder - nothing. Now Ian, Jenna and her friend Renee start getting nervous. Actually Jenna is getting outright hysterical, being sans dead boyfriend pills and not comfortable anymore with small spaces. There is shouting, arguing, crying, drinking water indiscriminately, and more shouting. A LOT more shouting. Ian gets the bright idea (and burnt hands) of grabbing the hot rocks and wrapping them in a towel to break the window in the door. He finally manages it, along with losing most of the skin on his hand. Now they have a little fresh air and that is good. But the fresh air tells the thermostat that the room is too cold and fires up the gas heater and that is bad. I don't know how they picked 247 degrees as the thing was set for, I dunno, a hundred and forty something so what's with the 247? Is that what you cook a turkey at? No really, is it 'cause I don't know...
The smartest one in the movie is the cabin owner's dog (duh) who 'senses' the three in trouble and tries to alert his master but the 'Timmy fell into the well again' tricks don't work in movies anymore and his owner ignores him. We then get movie filler as they get weaker, it gets hotter and personal revelations are shared, as often happen when the writers can't think of anything else to fill the space. Ian is supposed to be showing signs of heat exhaustion but instead he's showing signs of 'I'm bored by this role so I'm going to ham it up' syndrome, making him go nuts and break the gas heater in the middle of the sauna, miraculously blasting the door open and Jenna outside. She runs to the fridge, grabs a cold one and gulps it down and goes to her room. Nice. As she's sitting on her bed looking at her 'I'm a miserable ex-girlfriend' pills she hears her friend Renee's voice calling weakly to her. She snaps back to reality - ah hell no, she's still in the damn sauna!
Ian is of course very dead (shaked AND baked) and since Jenna conked Renee on the head with a rock she's not in great shape either. And now the room is filling with gas. She somehow props Renee's face next to the broken window, blocks the gas pipe and slumps down to accept that yes, she took money to be in this film and it's on her resume' forever...
Michael, unaware of his friends trapped in the sauna, gets back to the cabin where flashbacks shows us what a real dumbass he was and why he should be facing criminal charges about now. Drunk, hot and cold and stoned, he stumbled around and knocked stuff down, including a small ladder which he propped against the door (MASSIVE DUH). The cabin owner discovers the two girls, alive (based on real events my butt), in the sauna. The paramedics arrive and take Jenna and Renee in a stretcher as they hold hands.
And that was $3.99 I'm never going to see again. And 88 minutes of my life. What a job...
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