Jerry Shaw [Shia LaBeouf] and Rachel Holloman [Michelle Monaghan] are two regular people who are being instructed by this mysterious voice over the phone to do various things for her, or face the consequences. Jerry is suspected of terrorism and Rachel’s son’s life is being threatened, they must cooperate with this unknown woman or else.

Over the last five years I have been able to forget about Shia’s Disney career and see him in this fun action adventure actor. I look forward to anything he does nowadays because he has this charm to his acting that keeps me intrigued, it reminds me of Harrison Ford’s movies back in the 70s and 80s, and I know it’s a bit taboo right now but he really is the new Han Solo and Indy actor for the new generation. In that light this movie really doesn’t disappoint, because if Shia wasn’t the lead I really wouldn’t like it as much as I do.

I also liked Michelle Monaghan and Billy Bob Thorton. Billy Bob definitely played more of a caricature of those FBI agents but it was still fun to be all like “get it done or I’ll be so far up your ass” kind of person. Michelle Monaghan did the whole confused woman trying to save her son act well, even though I believe that she was brought on as the second lead here mainly for her looks rather than her acting chops. Not to say that she is a bad actress – I thought she was awesome in Gone Baby Gone – but this was a film that she really didn’t need to do anything too difficult. I know I could run around and be look like I didn’t want to do something like drive in a car chase and not know wtf is going on around me.

The story is where I really have a lot of my qualms with this movie. I like the idea of this mysterious figure pulling all the strings from an unknown place watching you and making sure you cooperate. However when they finally reveal who this figure is it just really disappointed me. I’m not sure how they could feasibly do what I wanted because it would be too ridiculous, and what they did makes more sense, I just felt bored when it was revealed since I’ve seen it before.

When it comes to the action scenes it is pretty much expected. A lot of cool sequences going on, and Shia doing what he does best [ie. not knowing what the hell he is doing]. Michelle does well to add a bit of charm to the movie and some more human elements, since Shia’s motivation is pretty selfish – no other real choice after the FBI find tons of shit in his apartment – while Michelle’s character is doing it to save her son. But for the most part you will really just be going “really” a lot while watching this movie since some of the things this ‘mysterious’ figure is doing to orchestrate some of these escapes and all for these two characters is sometimes way too unbelievable. The film really tries to work hard at making you feel like technology will be our downfall in the end.

Overall the movie is fun, but not something that you go to pay close attention to details and follow a deep story. Personally I think it isn’t really worth the ticket price and you should wait for a rental before you check this one out. Better to stick inside and check out something on DVD or something that you missed.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 27%

I say 6.5/10