It\u2019s a clever premise, to jam most of a movie\u2019s action into a small space. At least one filmmaker has tried this before: Hitchcock, whose \u201cLifeboat\u2019\u2019 placed survivors from a torpedoing during World War II into a dinghy. \u201cTwelve Angry Men\u2019\u2019 and \u201cDas Boot\u2019\u2019 also tackled this challenge and, to a lesser degree, \u201cPhone Booth\u2019\u2019 and \u201cPanic Room,” writes Ethan Gilsdorf in The Boston Globe.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDevil\u2019\u2019 throws down this claustrophobia-inducing gauntlet. Three-quarters of this thriller takes place in an elevator car stuck between the 21st and 22d floors of a skyscraper.<\/p>\n
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Trapped inside are five souls, a neat racial and socioeconomic cross-section of America: a mechanic and war vet played by Logan Marshall-Green (\u201cBrooklyn\u2019s Finest\u2019\u2019); Geoffrey Arend of \u201c(500) Days of Summer\u2019\u2019 as a smarmy salesman; hulking security guard Bokeem Woodbine (\u201cThe Last Sentinel\u2019\u2019); Bojana Novakovic (\u201cDrag Me to Hell\u2019\u2019) as an innocent-seeming young woman; and a harmless old lady, played by Jenny O\u2019Hara (\u201cMystic River\u2019\u2019).<\/p>\n
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From the opening sequence \u2014 upside-down aerial shots of the Philadelphia skyline \u2014 you know bad things will happen. Plus, before the elevator, we meet haunted Detective Bowden (Chris Messina of \u201cJulie & Julia\u2019\u2019), whose family recently died in a hit-and-run accident. A friend tells Bowden, \u201cYour ability to forgive is going to determine the course of your life more than anything else.\u2019\u2019 Naturally, we\u2019re going to see how that will play out.<\/p>\n
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Director John Erick Dowdle (\u201cQuarantine\u2019\u2019) gives us some breathing room by weaving in the fate of Bowden, as well as ample scenes of rescue crews trying to save the victims before they kill each other. Which they begin to do.<\/p>\n
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But, as the title gives away, the plot is less \u201cwhodunit\u2019\u2019 and more \u201cthe devil made whodunit.\u2019\u2019 One security guard, an amateur demonology expert, tries to convince our skeptical detective that the devil is in the details. The stuck elevator smacks of purgatory. That car wreck? It occurred on the Bethlehem Pike. With these not-so-subtle biblical nods, you know you\u2019re about to enter the morally pure universe of M. Night Shyamalan, where naughty people get punished.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDevil\u2019\u2019 may be directed by Dowdle, but the story is all Shyamalan (\u201cThe Sixth Sense,\u2019\u2019 \u201cSigns\u2019\u2019), the auteur of the \u201cwhat the . . .?\u2019\u2019 ending. \u201cDevil\u2019\u2019 is the first installment of \u201cThe Night Chronicles,\u2019\u2019 movies built on concepts and produced by Shyamalan but executed by newbie directors.<\/p>\n
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Despite the gimmick\u2019s potential hazard \u2014 the audience becoming squirrelly \u2014 the devilry largely works. Performances are solid, the script nimble, and the plot managed to keep at least this reviewer guessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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