Justin Theroux is Daniel Beckett, the black sheep son of a wealthy New York art dealer. He and his girlfriend, Suzanne (Alyssa Milano), are meeting his family for Thanksgiving at their sprawling country estate. During dinner, Daniel's domineering father informs him he must join the family business or be cut off from their vast wealth. Daniel and Suzanne retreat downstairs to the basement when... ...screams and gunfire erupt from above! A band of murderous thieves, lead by Jim (Ice T), has entered the house and is killing off Daniel's family. Knowing that the only way to survive is to take the offensive and fight back, Daniel and Suzanne eliminate the killers one by one. With the body count rising, a shocking twist to this deadly game of cat and mouse proves that blood isn't always thicker than water.
The eternally scantily clad Alyssa Milano (Body Count executive producer as well as star) gives a solid performance as the newest member of a wealthy clan whose constant in-fighting is terminally interrupted by a deadly pack of art thieves determined to add a few more skeletons to the already overstuffed family closet. This well-constructed, dark-edged melding of Die Hard and Peyton Place mostly runs like a dream, despite a few off-putting flashes of lame humor (courtesy of swaggering head killer Ice-T), and a Usual Suspects-inspired ending that, while certainly surprising, doesn't really seem to fit the material. All in all, this is a well-acted, surprisingly artful slice of pulp containing a welcome vein of genuine dread. --Andrew Wright
|
