Bait (2014) Reviews

• A compelling & visceral ride

  stewsith2014-11-06

  I saw this film at it's premiere at the Leeds International Film Festival 2014 and was delighted to find a gripping story with very interesting characters. Both female leads were fantastic in their roles and I was gripped from start to finish. It is a definite step up for Director Dominic Brunt after his directorial debut with Before Dawn (2012) and both the character building and story have improved dramatically. The story is thrilling and the actions of the film's Loan Shark villain are brutal and visceral, often shockingly so. This only adds to the gritty, real world quality the film presents to us. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good thriller! 10/10

• So,so bad..

  Eelsdownyourleg2018-07-21

  This film is utterly absurd on every level. It's badly written, acted and directed. Please don't waste any of your time on this drivel.

• Small budget big movie.

  middleearthmusic2016-06-20

  Now considering the budget of this movie was a tiny 180k this puts some of the movies that Hollywood is producing to shame. The script is sharp and the characters are well formed, a little too well formed maybe. The lead psychopath does an excellent job in luring the audience in with his charm, while disguising an underlying darkness that is truly reprobate. His counterparts play their parts equally well with a mixture of desperation and fear. Bottom line the story is very simple but there is enough thrills to keep your attention all the way. Would definitely recommend this. I'm sure everyone in the cast will glean bigger roles thanks to this.

• Nice try

  iandaddio2016-06-08

  This film had the potential to be a gritty realism movie about lone sharking. But the end product is an overly long overly emotionalised meandering pastiche of This is England and Eden Lake with a bit of Essex Boys thrown in for good measure. And that for me is this film's problem, it starts off as a well constructed idea which then over plays it's hand. With less of the character building and emotional narrative supposed anchors; the autistic son is an irrelevant attempt at emotionally blackmailing the audience that fails. The only worthy piece of acting comes from Jonathan Slinger, whose Mr Nice Guy act is genuinely believable; as is his sadistic alter ego. The two female leads are so over developed in the start of the movie that they quickly become self parodies, more so in case of the supposed street wise and sassy Bex. This means that the well constructed start rapidly becomes directionless and erratic in both plot progression and plot cohesion. However, the saving grace is the sheer brutality of the closing scenes. Although gratuitous, the violence is held within context of story and ability of protagonists. Overall a nice try hence the seven stars

• Terrible. No suspense, no scares, just stupid

  mike-771342015-08-31

  The first 5 minutes starts off okay, a little slow but good production value, decent dialog. It all goes down hill from there. 35 minutes into it and nothing's happening. Eventually, the violence starts, but it's so unrealistic and over the top, it's not believable, even within the context of the story. The violence is really fake too, with everyone getting beat to bloody hell, then walking around sporting a couple band-aids, like they are super-human. Sometimes, even the physics stand out as obviously wrong. This movie is frankly stupid. As it drags on, even the dialog and filming goes downhill, as if the crew realized just what a bad a movie they were making and gave up on it. Normally, I try to finish bad movies so I can leave a complete review, but with this one after an hour I had to fast-forward through most of it. The only reason I gave it two stars in the actors seemed to be trying with what little they were given.