1 out of 5

Director: David Brooks

Well, from the writer of ‘Buried.’ Repeated concept written for cash or one-trick pony? If you take the excuse-for-isolating-people-in-a-highly-implausible-locale setup out and just think of it as people trapped in a box (i.e. ignore the reasoning), ATM has some things working in its favor – although the characters aren’t really a likable film breed, director David Brooks, along with his script, makes them into real people – I believed the pacing of their actions, I believed the balance between humor and jerkiness and discomfort – not the most fascinating on-screen characters, but money-makin’ types are either pitched as too nice to be real or over-the-top mean ’cause we hate money, and this actually seemed like an honest representation. The rest of the film.. hm. I don’t know if ATM booths like this exist, with no connecting bank, no real nearby shops, parking yards away… the script does its best to justify it, but with the pointlessly repetitive “he planned it all” shots in the end credits (omg post spoiler alert i ruined everything), there were other locations that would’ve been better for this that I guess were too difficult to actually plot out. Nothing sticks out stylistically, but nothing is offensive, either. The Collector pulled off this character concept (obsessively detailed killer with no motive but, apparently, to toy with victims) much more convincingly by going wacky with it. ATM tries to balance between the gritty realism of “Buried” with “don’t go upstairs” horror tropes, and it mixes for a very unsatisfying, very uninvolving flick.