Review: 10x10

In a 10x10 room with concrete, sound absorbent walls no one can hear you scream. And certainly Kelly Reilly's Cathy does a great deal of screaming as a woman who's been mysteriously kidnapped and imprisoned in said room in 10x10, a lean dramatic thriller that isn't nearly as tense or interesting as it could have been.

The film begins promisingly enough with Luke Evans' Lewis observing Cathy as she goes about her day, grabbing food from a diner where she asks after a server's ailing wife, then to her yoga class where she's put off by someone's remark about the sex appeal of the instructor. So it would seem puzzling that a seemingly strait-laced woman who listens to Christian radio would be abducted in broad daylight. Yet taken she is, her mouth duct taped, her wrists and ankles zip-tied, and dumped into the trunk of Lewis' car with nary an eyewitness in sight.

Once in the specially constructed room in Lewis' remote, swankily designed home, it becomes clear that his motivations have nothing to do with sex or money. All he wants to know is her name and he seems to know enough about her to be very angry when she gives what he considers to be the wrong answer. Tensions mount, brutal fight scenes ensue, sympathies shift but the film never truly engages. The main problems are that director Suzi Ewing waits a tad too long to introduce the turning point in the narrative, and Ewing and co-writer Noel Clarke provide standard, been-there, done-that reasoning behind the kidnapping.

Where 10x10 truly and finally kicks into gear is during its last 25 minutes when Evans and Reilly get to completely unleash at each other and the film leans into the genre's brutal and bloody tropes.

10x10

Directed by: Suzi Ewing

Written by: Noel Clarke, Suzi Ewing

Starring: Luke Evans, Kelly Reilly, Noel Clarke