Five best friends—Vincent, Chris, Luke, Marty and Philip—share a loft that Vincent designed. The loft is a discreet place for the men to cheat on their wives and play out their secret fantasies. Once ideal, the loft turns into a crime scene when the men discover a dead woman on the bed.
The Loft, which premiered January 30th, 2015, consists of present-day happenings intertwined with flashbacks so the audience gets a sense of just how misogynistic and unfaithful these five best friends are. There are some wonderful things about this film. The acting was incredible. James Marsden (Chris), Karl Urban (Vincent), Wentworth Miller (Luke), and Eric Stonestreet (Marty) all stand out just because they’re all so different and they play up the differences extremely well. It’s hard to find a cast that’s so diverse and can pull that off without one actor overpowering another. (I’m giving props to the casting director on that one.)
I loved how The Loft ended. The twist is so unexpected and when the audience learns what happens, that aha! moment happens. However, the characters are hypocritical in how they react and the audience will be left seething, especially because it’s so hard to have sympathy for any of the characters in the first place.
If the point of the movie was to show that all guys are not the same, then the film missed it completely. I’m not sure if the audience was supposed to have sympathy for how much trouble these guys could get into but I spent the entire movie thinking, “You all deserved this!”
The Loft is a movie made by men for married men who want to live vicariously through other unfaithful men. The film wasn’t life changing and ultimately left me feeling angry. While the idea of the movie was excellent and the big reveal put me through a loop, The Loft falls flat on its face since the characters weren’t likeable. I wouldn’t have felt any remorse if they all went to jail because of the dead woman in the apartment. (Though, that’s not what happened even if I wished that it did. )
Even the relationship between Chris and a prostitute felt contrived, as if it was put there just so the film could say that horrendous phrase: “Not all men!”
Maybe next time, The Loft, maybe next time.
