Starring: Luke Evans, Kelly Reilly, Noel Clarke, Olivia Chenery, Jill Winternitz, Skye Lucia Degruttola, Jason Maza, Norma Dixit
Review: A mysterious man (Luke Evans) abducts a flower shop owner (Kelly Reilly) and takes her to his secluded home where he holds her captive in a 10 feet by 10 feet soundproof room. As she struggles to escape, her kidnapper is determined to dig up a deep, dark secret from her past.
10x10 is a stripped-down thriller with two very good actors (Luke Evans and Kelly Reilly, respectively) that seem too good for this intriguing but repetitive suspenseful flick. I like thrillers that keep you guessing, but this one takes just too long to let the audience in on what is motivating Lewis (Luke Evans) to kidnap the unsuspecting Cathy (Kelly Reilly) and cryptically question her over and over again. He asks her vague questions, leaves the room, she screams, tries to escape, then he re-enters, more agitated, asks question with more intensity, rise, repeat. But why?
If he went through all of the trouble to follow her around, build a soundproof room, and physically nab her, then why not just ask he what you want to ask her? What's with all of the secrecy? He's acting like there's an audience watching or something. And there lies the biggest flaw of 10x10. What should be a short film is stretched to its limits with its 88 minute run-time. It's no to say that I didn't want to learn about the secret Cathy was hiding. But when the reveal happens the movie switches gears a bit and our characters seem to change to help the story go where it wants to go, not to where the established characters should go. I'm trying to be a bit vague so not to give away much of the last third of the movie.
I think 10x10 could even be an interesting stage play if the script was re-written and made a bit more sense for its characters. It is tense and thrilling, but its repetitiveness had me asking several questions that took me out of the story numerous times. There's just too much room for improvement here.