Shattered is a home invasion thriller coming to digital download from 16th May. It’s got twists and turns you’ll see coming a mile off, some questionable acting and decision making by some of its characters, a dash of gratuitous nudity and John Malkovich starring as a pervert. But, despite all of that, I actually found it to be quite fun!
Shattered opens with Chris Decker (Cameron Monaghan), a tech millionaire recently divorced from his wife and now living apart from her and their daughter in an impressive house with a state of the art security system. While out doing a spot of late night grocery shopping, Chris meets Sky (Lilly Krug) who is pondering over the right wine to choose. She asks Chris for his advice. they get talking and Chris offers to drive Sky home. But when they pull up outside the motel Sky is staying at, she is reluctant to go back inside and deal with her “crazy” roommate, so Chris offers her the opportunity to come home with him for a while. Back at his place they chat a while, drink wine and end up having wild sex.
The next morning Chris wakes to find Sky gone. He’s obviously intrigued by her so tracks her down to her place of work and they go out on a date. But when they return to the car, they disturb someone trying to break their way into it. Chris confronts the thief and things turn ugly, resulting in a smashed up leg for Chris, a trip to the hospital and a plaster cast which now means he’s confined to a wheelchair. Sky decides to adopt the role of a live-in nurse and, despite the fact that Chris is naturally cautious of people and made his millions from home security, hands over the security codes for the house and lets her move in. They have more sex, which is obviously what was running through his mind when he decided to make such a stupid decision.
You can see where all of this is heading and thankfully it doesn’t take long for Sky to reveal her true intentions to Chris and show him exactly what she’s capable of (it’s also pretty much all there in the trailer if you like your movies spoiled beforehand) and Chris suddenly finds himself in a whole world of trouble. And not even a bungling rescue attempt by Sky’s landlord Ronald (John Malkovich) can save him.
Up until this point, Shattered is fairly enjoyable, one of those movies where you feel like you want to know how it’s all going to pan out so stick around until the end. However, the arrival of Sky’s accomplice Sebastian (Frank Grillo) for the final third of the movie ends up proving to be a double-edged sword. While it does deliver some much-needed momentum and intensity in order to push us towards the finale, it also takes the focus away from Lilly Krug, who up until that point was doing a pretty decent job of single-handedly carrying the movie. This is her first lead role and it’s certainly saying something when she’s putting in a better performance than John Malkovich, clearly loving her chance at playing an over the top nut job.
I felt that Shattered could have benefitted from some fleshing out of its characters, as I struggled to connect and sympathise with Chris, who just came across as dull. But, I’ve got to admit, I did enjoy how the final act played out and overall found this to be fairly watchable.
Signature Entertainment present Shattered on Digital Platforms 16th May
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Web developer by day, with a movie and TV watchlist that continues to grow as much as my spare time reduces! My favourite movie is Inception and, despite what everyone says, I do not have a man-crush on Tom Cruise.
