Review of ATM (2012) by Writefilmlive21 — 01 Dec 2012

A concept with promise that falls apart in the end. The main flaw in "ATM" is that it's really about the villain, yet focuses the entire time on the heroes. Our main characters are boring cutouts, who only bring good acting to the table after a bland setup (helped along immensely by an implausibly ill-equipped friend), and after a stop in an ATM find themselves trapped by a mysterious man outside.

The thought processes and decisions made early on come off as smart and reasonable enough, but the loosely-written conclusion is where any well-developed plot deflates. The implication in the ending is that the villain set everything up to frame this man, and this is something he does habitually, but how could he pull that off? There are so many loose ends left that, from the standpoint of law enforcement, would seem rather big question marks as to the certainty of our main character being the "guilty" one.

How would they explain the busted-up door in the back, or the man he burned who was sitting in a lawn chair, or the sequence of events and murders, or the friggin' CAR driven into the ATM? And if this is something he does habitually, wouldn't the police catch on? Would they really believe that a string of very unusual ATM multiple murders would be a result of random individual psychopaths and not perhaps something simpler and more obvious? It just doesn't work - ATM is a cool idea written ultimately into the ground.