The storyline is fairly straightforward, five seemingly respectable professional men conspire to share a secret apartment. A safe space in which to conduct their illicit affairs and indulge in their deepest, darkest fantasies, safe from the prying eyes of their wives.
That is until one of them, Luke, arrives to find a dead body, an unknown woman, a blonde, hand-cuffed to the bed they have all used at some point.
Then their fantasy turns into a nightmare, as they realise there are only 5 keys to the apartment and it isn’t possible to duplicate the keys… so one of the 5 must be the murderer?
Or so you think…
The film is quite inventive in terms of use of flashbacks, the way the five are questioned by the detectives investigating the crime, the possibility of the wives being involved? The list of potential suspects grows, as the victim is revealed. It has a feel of classic Hitchcock about it as we appear to suspect everyone, no-one is safe.
With a stellar cast, including James Marsden (Hairspray, amongst many others), Keith Urban (Bones in the Star Trek reboot), Wentworth Miller (Prison Break) and Matthias Schoenaerts (from the original version of Loft, and also Rust & Bone, A Little Chaos and Far from the Madding Crowd) who all give performances that waver between making you feel revulsion for them and their predicament and pity for the game they are all involved in.
Erik Van Looy remakes his 2008 Belgian classic and succeeds with playing with you – you think you know where it’s going, but you’re wrong!
One for a DVD and pizza night…
A massive 4 stars
