Man, this just looks awful.
This has to be seen simply for the fact that veteran director Joe Johnston was at the helm, which begs the question: what the hell happened here? Not because the whole thing looks awful (which it does), but why in the hell did Johnston ever sign on to direct this in the first place? A low rent thriller about “an office worker trapped inside a building where a killer is on the loose” is as generic as they come and yet the director of films like CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THE ROCKETEER, JURASSIC PARK III, THE WOLFMAN, etc. is at the helm. It just doesn’t add up. The film is produced by Jason Blum who had great success last year with THE PURGE, but this one is obviously a dud (and squeaking through a VOD release no less). I’m just kind of baffled that this is made by the same director as the aforementioned pics.
NSFW (yeah, not at all):
We’ve seen aging director’s fall out of touch with their work throughout the years, which is often a sad thing to witness when you look at their prior work. Guys like John Carpenter or M. Night Shyamalan are easy examples, but Johnston has been mostly steady with his work, never really falling into a sharp decline. Perhaps this was an experiment or something, I don’t know. It should serve as a sort of cautionary tale, really. Thankfully, Johnston is getting back behind the camera for a more high-profile project next with GOTTI: IN THE SHADOW OF MY FATHER with John Travolta and Anthony Hopkins, but after NOT SAFE FOR WORK I’m more than a little concerned.
NOT SAFE FOR WORK, starring Max Minghella, is slated to disappear into obscurity sometime this year.