I have to be honest and say that by the time this was over, I had stopped caring. As a matter of fact, by about a half hour in I had stopped caring. The story is convoluted, the writing is poor, the pacing is dreadful and the characters are a mish mash of unlikable and unmemorable people, none of whom (except for the 2 women, played by Kate Hudson and Jessica Alba, who end up as unwitting victims of the psychotic, BDSM loving Lou Ford) you really care about. After not really caring about either most of this movie or most of the characters, you're treated to a completely silly ending in which Lou concocts a plan to take out himself and pretty much everybody else by soaking his house with gasoline and other chemicals while waiting for the police to show up, the interesting thing being that once the police show up they seem to spend an awfully long time in the house - without noticing the smell of gasoline and other chemicals! (Meanwhile, if I get just a couple of drops of gasoline on my fingers in a gas station it overwhelms me!)
The only thing that really made this movie worth watching was Casey Affleck as the aforementioned Lou Ford. He was actually pretty good in delivering a very low key, quiet spoken performance; one that was so low key and so quiet spoken (even though we know the character has a very dark side almost from the beginning) that he made the character far more effectively creepy than he otherwise would have been. But beyond Affleck's performance I can't say that there was very much that would be of any great appeal. (3/10)
