X (2011)

A Masterpiece!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The Plot: Holly Rowe's retiring, kissing her callgirl life goodbye. She just has to get through her last night on the job. Shay Ryan's a teenage runaway, broke and alone. She just has to get through her first night as a hooker. Then fate throws them together on a job that goes horribly wrong and they're trapped on an out-of-control roller coaster ride, through the twilight zone of sex-for-sale. X is a sizzling adults-only thriller about love, chance, escape and the oldest profession experienced by two women, on a night that will change their lives forever.This movie is silly. It's directed like one of those horrible sex flicks on cable TV late at night. Also, it's not called X in the titles. The titles use the name "EXIT" as the title of the film. I guess they thought it was more titillating to call it X...About the only thing I enjoyed was seeing the scenes of Sydney. Haven't been there in a long time....funny tho...I DO remember the hookers, but they were all trannies!!In the end, there's nothing thrilling about this film. It's rather slow and boring to be frank.

"X: Night of Vengeance" is about two prostitutes, Holly Rowe (Viva Bianca) and Shay Ryan (Hanna Manhan Lawrence), who inadvertently put their lives in dangers when they witness their client being shot by a cop. What follows is a series of chases throughout the criminal underworld.This film does have its moments. In the beginning, there is an effective scene with Shay in a bathroom with blue lighting. That scene was probably meant to underscore the vulnerability of a poverty-stricken prostitute in a hostile underworld where women are dehumanized to the point where they become pieces of meat. Another great moment, at the beginning, has the camera linger upon Viva Bianca's Holly so that we ask ourselves what she is thinking and feeling.Yet, on the other hand, the scenes of prostitution, violence, and drug use are so aggressively unpleasant that they have the effect of pushing you away rather than trying to involve you in the lives of their characters. Watching "X" was truly a depressing and sometimes boring experience, because there is nothing redeemable about this picture. "X" did not need a happy ending, but it did require compelling human stories to fill the void created by the emptiness and coldness of its underworld environment. This film's failings demonstrate the difference between great films, like the "Exorcist," "Hotel Rwanda," and "The Last King of Scotland," and sub-par horror films like Salo, Friday 13th series, and Hostel. All these films depict horrific subject matter, but some of them have characters with great depth and humanity. As a result, we are willing to stay with these characters on their harrowing journey, even when their lives are a living hell. When compelling human stories such as these are absent from a movie, all that is left is the violence, the blood, and the drug use. Some people like these things for their own sake, but for me a film has to be a lot more than just its aggressively unpleasant subject matter.

...because the main problem with this movie is the plot.It is bad and just a big mess.The acting is below average grade but the nudity is OK.The sex scenes are not exiting but rather boring.The film started well but as the minutes passed,i wanted to press the fast forward button because I was bored.By all means,this is not the worst movie i have ever seen.But with actor like Viva Bianca and director Jon Hewitt i had expected something better. This movie reminds me of Dane Giraud's "Luella Miller from 2005 in a way.There are probably many others who disagree with me but in my view,this film is not even worth the rental time.There are so many other good movies in this category.I can mention Djo Munga's Viva Riva,Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm and Giuseppe Tornatore's The Unknown Woman(La Sconosciuta).

Bianca (Holly) and Lawrence (Shay) turn in very decent acting turns as the jaded pro looking for her exit from the business and the naive, young girl from the sticks thrust onto the street, respectively. They make the most of a basically unbelievable plot that relies far too much on outrageous coincidence to move the story along.Example One: Holly's controlling, abusive boyfriend just happens to pick her last night in town to suggest they leave it all behind, just happens to ask her where she'd go if she had no limits, and this supposedly streetwise pro who's leaving him behind just happens to be stupid enough to tell him precisely where she's headed.Example Two: Holly's last trick before leaving is a dual job, needing a brunette, but her normal partner just happens to slip in the shower just before Holly shows up at her flat and is unconscious (dead?) when Holly arrives. Holly leaves and her cabbie just happens to nearly run down Shay, who just happens to be brunette, just happens to be a prostitute and just happens to be in town for her first night on the street.And the most unbelievable part is that Holly is even considering turning the trick in the first place! A fellow pro gifts her with a wad of cash as a going away present in the previous scene and she's leaving in only a few hours, so that trick is wholly unnecessary ... but she takes it anyway.Suspension of disbelief was nearly impossible for me with this script.The movie is further hampered by the cartoonish supporting characters. The male antagonists are little more than brutes with suits, with Docker (Ligurian), Holly's erstwhile boyfriend, providing the emotional menace in the beginning and Phillips (Bennett) providing the physical menace for the latter half. Both are bad cops, but we never find out why, never get any context for their clearly violent natures, and are left with two dimensional caricatures to work with. After witnessing Bennett senselessly off their john over a drug transaction that actually went well, the two women flee. With more unbelievable coincidences at his disposal, Bennett successfully tracks them down in a city of half a million people, and the latter half of the film is him chasing the women from scene to scene, ineffectually, while absorbing a truly unbelievable amount of punishment in the process. Just once I'd like to see someone get hit by a car and not walk away.The rest of the cast seem to be there for one purpose only, to illustrate over and over precisely how naive Shay is. We see an awkward moment with a john, an awkward moment with a competitor and her pimp, a couple of awkward moments with a street kid who fleeces her, and an awkward moment with a couple of junkies. This is just plain old ham-fisted directing. Lawrence's facial expressions and body language told us that her character was a hick from the sticks in her first scene. The rest was just superfluous.In the end, the film was enjoyable, however plasticine it ultimate turned out to be, but mostly because the female leads are stunning and spend at least part of the movie unclothed. The growing friendship is clearly the only deep part of the entire movie.Synopsis? It's a moderately exciting thriller, with a couple of very decent actresses succeeding despite a bad script and some average directing.