Too much of everything

Strong and Moving!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

I guess I am having a hard time understanding why anyone would make this movie. 107 minutes of brutality and torture. For what? I understand having this as a setup for the payoff but THERE ISN'T ONE! Yes, the movie was suspenseful at times but it dragged on forever and the pacing was horrible. About an hour in I started fast forwarding it to get it over with. I really wish I had the time i spent watching this back, And BTW, what happened to the note/signed message she left at the store? Nothing? More wasted time. It's like someone took "Taken", took out all the exiting and rewarding parts and just made a version where the kidnappers win. And by the third time the driver survives what should be crippling injuries it just got ridiculous. A complete waste of time and effort.

Four kids coming back from a trip to Mexico are convinced by a driver to board his shuttle to get downtown. He offers them his service for half the price of the other shuttles. Already aboard is a nerdy businessman. The driver picks a dangerous route through some shady neighborhoods. Then they get a flat tire and the muscular kid who offers to help change the tire loses his fingers in the process. The driver who up till now seemed a jerk and endangered everybody on board for no good reason unmasks himself as a kidnapper. He takes the passengers' ATM cards and PIN numbers, their valuable luggage, and sends a girl to shop for some items. In the process there are a whole lot of threats ,pointing guns and knives at people. All this while he drives endlessly around dark LA neighborhoods. Right in the middle of the movie there is a great surprise twist that I didn't expect. It turns out this isn't about the money the passengers have on them. Nor is it about all of the passengers (2 guys and 2 girls make up the 4 kids), but just about the girls. Finally he takes the girls to a warehouse where a customer inspects them and picks one. And in the fantastic and unexpected ending we learn the fate of that girl. Low budget pychoterror tends to be lame. And Shuttle struggles mightily against it's low budget and a lack of story. What helps are the excellent performance of Tony Curran, who is a great villain, the twist, and the ending. Despite the miniscule script, the director does a great job and keeps us mildly engaged and our thumbs away from the FF button, but barely. Since the director is also the writer he only gets partial kudos. Perhaps he should have gotten another writer on board to help him expand the script a bit. As with all these movies, the characters act in ways that no rational human would, but the script requires them to. Not just the victims, after all this villain isn't that threatening, plus...he's busy driving; but also the villain makes pointless choices, why does he send the girl shopping, shouldn't he have all that already prepared? The movie looks a bit too dark, lacks excitement, and thrills, but succeeds at what it aims to do more than similar movies.

probably this movie could had been a good candidate for the worst movie of the year in 2008.I'll go straight to the main course with no gravy at all. act is bad,director/writer is bad,story line is broken in a great number,character development non,,mistake after mistake all along the length of the movie. you don't see any cars or traffic in any part of the streets in New York for hours.things are left unwrapped.there is no cops in New York what so ever. kidnappers been doing their job-according to the number of ID cards found in his drawer-without any problem for a long time.apparently you can ship human packed and racked in a box right through the NY harbour without customs authorities bugging you. you can colour your hair from dark brown to blond in the sink of the kidnappers' basement in 10 seconds all styled.you can get cut a few times and you got a bullet in your chest and no problem you can still function properly.and list goes on.

So okay here goes. Crazy bus driver takes a handful of 'kids' (late 20s to early 30s) and one timid middle-aged guy, hostage.He threatens them with violence and a gun. But get this, the 'kids' have countless opportunities to get away, but would rather make life more difficult by choosing not to.I promise, you'll scream at how pathetic these people are. I could only make it 50 minutes in and I had to skip to the end. I wasn't going to waste a further 40 minutes of my life on it. But let me just say, the conclusion was utterly stupid.What a stinker this movie is. Unlikeable and unmemorable characters.Bad acting, particularly by the timid guy and the bus driver. Truly awful. A very stupid plot.All in all I couldn't care what happened to these idiots, or the man with the gun. Boring beyond belief.I understand there's torture porn in this film. Do you know something, who cares!? Not me. Awful film. Just 1 out of 10.