BEFORE: Halle Berry carries over from "The Call" - at one point I had this all set up to lead into the new "X-Men" movie, but then plans changed. Actually, I think I may have counted wrong at one point, and I was off by a few movies, so after tonight will be some fill-ins that hopefully won't be too far off-topic, and those will get me close enough to Movie #1800.
AFTER: This is a whodunit where a lot of the investigating and subterfuge takes place online, and this is a big problem, because it's hard to film this in an interesting way. What's so exciting about words popping up on a computer screen? Does anyone even use chatrooms any more? Oh, wait, this film was released in 2007, so all of its technology is outdated - I suspect it was even outdated at the time of its release. Text messages are still a thing, but just barely - everyone's using FaceTime and Skype now, right?
It's also set in the world of advertising, and from what I know about that, it gets at least some of that right. Art directors and copywriters do bounce around from agency to agency, so there's bound to be an opportunity for corporate secrets to go with them, though I doubt that in most instances that would cause a giant client like Reebok to break off a 20-year relationship with a respected agency, as long as their advertising was successful, that is. Would the top executives at ad agencies act a bit like rock stars, sleeping around with employees and fashion models? Sure, that I'd believe, there was a sexual harassment case against a Saatchi & Saatchi executive last year, and for extra fun, Google the case an executive brought against the Dentsu agency back in 2007. (it involved company-funded visits to a Czech brothel and a Japanese bathhouse - now that's movie-worthy material...)
NITPICK POINT: At one point, the lead character goes undercover to work at the ad agency. She's asked to fill out her I-9 form for human resources. As any office manager can tell you, an I-9 form requires an employee to submit proper I.D. with it, such as a passport, or a driver's license AND social security card. Since she's working there under an assumed name, how did she fill in her I-9 form? There was no mention of her getting a phony passport or driver's license, so how did she get cleared by the H.R. department to work and get a paycheck?
NITPICK POINT #2: She is given the task of filling gift bags for a Victoria's Secret event, and walks into a room where all of the gift bags are laid out on every table and counter in the room. Someone took the time to unpack and unfold all of the bags and spread them out on the table, but NOT fill them? This is a very inefficient use of employee time. It doesn't take much more time to unpack a bag, unfold it, put the gift items in it, and then place it on the table. Either someone doesn't know how to deal with promotional items efficiently, or they're doing too many steps on purpose, perhaps trying to increase the man-hours it takes to do the job.
Now, I have to take issue with the ending. Many times, since I try to be spoiler-free, I hesitate to even mention that there's a twist ending, because sometimes even just knowing that it's coming would spoil it. I can mention it tonight because the twist is not something that anyone would see coming, which means that it is not at all believable. If you see this twist and laugh out loud at it, I would consider that a proper reaction. There are twists that make you re-visit everything you've seen up until that point and view it in a new light, and then there are twists that just negate everything you've seen already, and cause the movie to stop making sense. This one is more along those lines.
Also starring Bruce Willis (last seen in "The Expendables"), Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Richard Portnow (last seen in "Hitchcock"), Gary Dourdan, Paula Miranda, Patti D'Arbanville (last seen in "The Fan"), Clea Lewis, with a cameo from Heidi Klum.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Hemingway daiquiris
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