Review of Open Windows (2014) by Ola G — 12 Oct 2015

Nick Chambers (Elijah Wood) wins a contest to meet his favorite actress, Jill Goddard (Sasha Grey). Nick, the webmaster of a fansite dedicated to Jill, is crushed when Chord(Neil Maskell), Jill's manager, informs him that she has not only failed to invite him to the film's publicity but also canceled the contest. Chord remotely sends Nick a link to his laptop that opens a live stream. Chord explains that he has hacked into Jill's cell phone and activated the microphone and camera without her knowledge. Although uneasy about invading her privacy, Nick goes along with Chord's plans to spy on her. By eavesdropping on her phone conversations, they learn that she will secretly meet her agent, Tony, with whom she is having an affair, at the same hotel in which Nick is staying. Chord directs Nick to use preexisting high end surveillance equipment to spy on Jill and Tony. As he watches them, Nick is briefly contacted by a trio of hackers who address him as Nevada. Jill leaves Tony's room. When Nick's lights spontaneously turn on and Tony can see the camera pointed at his room, Nick panics as Tony leaves his room to investigate. Chord orders Nick to use a Taser to incapacitate Tony. Feeling that he has no choice, Nick agrees. Nick initially refuses to tie up Tony but does so once Chord threatens to stop helping him. Suspicious of why all this equipment is available in his hotel room, Nick questions who Chord really is; Chord ignores him and guides him out of the hotel by hacking into its security system. Chord blackmails Nick into further compliance by revealing that the entire contest was a hoax, and Chord now has video proof of Nick's crimes. Chord forces Nick to follow Jill to her house, and he is contacted once again by the trio of hackers, who believe Nick to be a famous hacker. They offer to help him in his latest hack, and Nick recruits them to counteract Chord. Meanwhile, Chord hacks into Jill's PC when she goes home. When Nick refuses to send her PC a file, Chord demonstrates that he is capable of sneaking into Jill's house and killing her...

We Got This Covered stating overall that "Open Windows" spams audiences with an overload of development without much explanation, much like those information-less ads claiming to solve your impotency problem with a magic formula.". "Open Windows" wants to be Brian De Palma, but ends up as Uwe Boll. This is a poor mans thriller with amateurish cinematography, amateurish script, amateurish acting and an amateurish vibe. Elijah Wood has ended up doing worse and worse movies and I reckon he can hardly be proud of this. His performance in "Open Windows" is scattered and pretty much so so. Former pornstar Sasha Grey is no better. She´s hardly a grade A actress. The general idea is there with blackmail, manipulation, advanced technology, hackers and social media, but it´s handled in an amateurish messy way with plot holes and illogical actions. I like the effort of making the film more or less via computer screens, phones, tv cameras etc, but yet again it fails due to the amateurish handling. "Open Windows" is a film to forget and move on from.