Shuttle

Written & Directed by:  Edward Anderson
Starring:  Tony Curran, Peyton List, dumb teenagers


The last movie that I watched on my queue was a 2008 movie called Shuttle.  It is about a group of teenagers who arrive at an airport late at night back from a wild trip to Mexico.  They are greeted by a friendly shuttle driver saying he'd gladly take them back to the city for a cheap rate since its his last ride of the night.  He seemed nice enough and they were desperate so they accepted the ride and started their long journey into the night.  Of course, they didn't know at the time that the driver had a different agenda for the group and they are forced to play by his rules the rest of the movie.

Semi-Spoiler poster for Shuttle.

The beginning of this movie has painfully cheesy dialogue between the teens.  One guy must hit on every girl he sees, and his friend is the token nice guy always waiting for the 'right girl.'  The two girls involved are both attractive and one is kinda slutty, so the boys decided to ride with them on the shuttle in hopes of getting some action later.  Needless to say, that decision would cost them dearly.

Naturally, at the first sign of trouble, their cell phones can't get service.  How many times has your phone lost service while you were in a big city just outside of an airport?  The answer should be never, but in the movies, the answer is always.  Anyways, the sinister driver is played very well by Tony Curran (Underworld 2) as he uses his best 'Jigsaw' voice.  Between the driver and the lead females (Peyton List) performance, it made up for the others' lack of talent.  However, the amateur scriptwriting is most likely to blame for their performances. 

As for the movie itself, it contained two major twists.  One of which I saw from the second they stepped on the shuttle, which deeply disappointed me.  The other comes at the very end, which I can honestly say I didn't quite see coming.  There were definitely clues throughout that I noticed but it was never blatantly obvious, which was nice.  I'm a firm believer that if you can wow the audience at the end, it can make up for some of the previous shortcomings in the film (i.e. Saw).  The suspense leading up to the final scene was also very well done.  To say I was anxiously on the edge of my seat is an overstatement for sure, but I was definitely interested in the outcome. 

This movie definitely chose the suspense over violence route, which is understandable.  Unfortunately, the little violence that is actually shown on screen (which is not much), is poorly done.  Remember being a kid and pretending a to have knife stuck in you?  All you have to do is just stick it to the side of you and it looks real from a side angle.  Well the filmmakers remembered that trick and used it not only once... but THREE times.  I can excuse it once, but every time someone gets stabbed, please make it seem a little more believable.  Little things like that add up and it just ruins the movie for me.

If it wasn't for the strong ending, I would tell you to never watch this movie.  The first two acts of the film are simply not any good.  The violence was poorly executed, the characters were mind-numbingly stupid throughout, and the dialogue was very suspect.  However, Tony Curran played a great bad guy, and I expect to see the beautiful Peyton List in more movies in the future.  Overall, it was a pretty decent first movie from writer/director Edward Anderson, and I'd be interested in seeing what he does next.  Hopefully he learns from his mistakes with Shuttle, and continues to build on the level of suspense provided from the third act of the movie.


Total Score:  3/10
Buckets:  0.5/5