- Directed by Joel David Moore
- Written by Jung Huh, Joel David Moore
- Stars Mustafa Shakir, Joe Pantoliano, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwCiwmroCJQ
Jonathan Rhys Meyers stars in HIDE & SEEK, now streaming on Redbox! The search for a missing brother reveals a terrifying family secret in this tense psychological thriller filled with shocking twists and nail-biting turns. Stream HIDE & SEEK instantly on Redbox On Demand today. Rated R. From Paramount Pictures.
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s a slow-burn psychological thriller showing a stark contrast between the haves and have-nots. When the two worlds start to overlap, it causes some deadly problems.
Synopsis
A woman goes home to a condemned building. She tells her mother that knows an artist who’s going to help her move out. Someone’s been in her apartment and taken all her money. She plays back the security footage and finds the guy standing right behind her, hidden in a motorcycle helmet. He beats her to death as credits roll.
Noah has taken over his father’s hotel business, but he doesn’t have the old man’s confidence or smarts. He’s also not the legitimate heir, says the interviewer. He needs to make peace with his estranged brother to be fully accepted. Noah’s got OCD and can’t stand things being out of place or disordered.
The lawyer shows Noah photos of Jacob, his brother. He’s living in some derelict building downtown; there’s a girl who went missing in the same building. Noah goes to the building and has his phone stolen. He chases after the little girl who took it and gets his hand cut by a crazy homeless guy. Soo Mi, the lady who bandages Noah’s hand, freaks out when he shows her a picture of his brother.
Noah finally gets into Jacob’s apartment, and it’s a mess. He finds a note, “I am not a ghost.” We get a flashback to Jacob and Noah finding their mother’s suicide. She also left a note saying, “I am not a ghost.” He runs into the man in the motorcycle helmet, and he thinks it’s Jacob, but they don’t speak.
Noah does some research on the building Jacob lives in and then has a nightmare about his brother that night. His daughter, Hannah, literally bumps into a man in a motorcycle helmet that night. Could he be following Noah’s family?
Noah goes back to Jacob’s place, but his apartment has been cleared out. This time, somebody beats him up for being there, thinking he had something to do with the missing girl. Noah’s wife rides in an elevator with the helmeted man, and his kids get a good scare when he comes to their apartment.
Noah clearly has a mental break, but his wife thinks they can deal with it. Noah thinks Jacob wants to take over his life. She seems to have dealt with this before; she asks if he’s actually seen Jacob. Noah starts to think Jacob is hiding inside their walls.
Noah goes back to Jacob’s place, this time armed with a golf club. He attacks some innocent guy, thinking he was Jacob. He gets on the dead girl’s computer and plays back the security footage; he finds a secret passageway. Another guy in the building plays back the footage, and we see who the killer really is.
Noah rushes home to save his family…
Commentary
The first hour is suspenseful and creepy, and you don’t know what’s going on for a long while. It’s actually really good.
But then the reveal of the killer is pretty much out of the blue, and we were given no real foreshadowing or explanation of why this might be the case. Actually, nothing after the reveal makes much sense. In the final scene, we do get semi-ambiguous closure on Jacob, but a lot of it still doesn’t make sense.