Wes Bentley - Articles - Zimbio

P2 The Movie

Fri, 17 Nov 2007 20:13:00 GMT

posted by poksa

Been awaiting for the release of P2 for quite while now. As a horror fanatic I needed to see this. It was great to hear Alexandre Aja involved. I'm not a fan of High Tension, but think he did a great job on The Hills Have Eyes remake. 2007, in my opinion, has been a great year for Horror - but P2 certainly stands out in the crowd. Suspenseful, Thrilling, Realistic and a lot more...you don't want to miss out on P2.

One of the best thrillers out there, P2 is exciting, entertaining and very, very well done. It's talk about a business woman who is stalked by a psychopath killer after she gets stuck in a parking garage, and she must fight many challenges through the night for survive. This movie is very enjoyable, it's keep you on the edge of your sofa, from the beginning to the end.

Rachel Nichols plays Angela, a dedicated worker who is heading home to her family on Christmas Eve. However, when she gets in the parking garage - her car refuses to start. Pacing up and down the parking levels, she meets a friendly security guard named Thomas (Wes Bentley) who offers kind help. But before Angela knows it, she is knocked unconscious and awakens in Thomas' office, who appears to be fascinated with her and is, in short - mental and psychopath. Angela realizes she has to survive his psychotic ways, his vicious dog and being trapped.

Firstly, the cast do great. There's a small cast and they all do their jobs very well. Rachel Nichols and Wes Bentley both stand out and shine in their performances. Rachel Nichols is great and Wes Bentley's too, they are both very talented and Rachel is very sexy. Wes doing a villain has very real reactions and Rachel (i think) for the first time in a lead role is very charismatic. The script is very good but has it mistakes (of course), it is far from the perfect film, but is not close from the worst. I'm particularly impressed with Nichols as she truly does a great job. It's also great to be seeing Wes take on a role he hasn't done before, which is of the "psycho" in the movie. He does it really well. The characters and their characterization are done really well too. We focus on both characters and get to know them both. Angela is the hard worker who just wants to get home to the family and please everybody, whereas Thomas is this lonely man with a dog in need of some company. You actually feel sorry for him at times.

The plot of the movie is also great, and like I said before - one of the things that attracted me to see P2. I love the fact the movie takes place at Christmas, and it's even got me into the Christmas spirit early! I think the idea of being trapped, alone, in a parking garage is scary enough. But to be trapped with a psychotic man is even scarier, as well as his menacing dog. This movie has tons of thrills and suspenseful chase scenes to keep the viewer on the edge of their seats, and it's entertaining from start to finish. The movie also has some bloody, cringe-worthy scenes which are quite brutal.

I don't have any complaints about the movie, as it's what I expected it to be and more. You know, I'm already hearing bad things said about this film, and it's a shame. I don't know why people are bad mouthing it, as to me - it seems people are just hard to please. Maybe people saw this and expected a gore-fest? I don't know, but I do advise you watch this movie for yourself as it is amazing and one of the best horrors I've seen in 2007.

Ghost Rider. Mark Steven Johnson.

Tue, 30 May 2007 16:16:11 GMT

posted by thestopbutton

Watching former--I don't know, he wasn't really an indie, so something like pre-hipster hipster--wunderkind Wes Bentley in material like this movie (where he finally finds his appropriate level, skill-wise) is kind of amusing. Is it amusing enough to get through the whole movie, especially since Bentley doesn't show up until twenty-five minutes into it (remember, he was supposedly going to be Spider-Man at one point)? No, because it only occurred to me I should be so amused by Bentley's plummeting when he showed up. I needed something to amuse me, since his acting and the script are both so awful.

It's also amazing what the MPAA will give a PG-13 if the intended audience are red state voters. Ghost Rider's got some positively nightmare-inducing grotesque imagery (but no swearing).

Watching Peter Fonda and Bentley “act” opposite each other... someone out there--presumably Mark Steven Johnson--thought they were doing a good job. He thought he'd written a good scene even, instead of something so laughable, it plays like a joke commercial on an episode of “Family Guy.” Worse is Johnson's attempt to make Ghost Rider a story about fathers and sons, which is a bit like he did in Daredevil, only Daredevil seemed like a real movie, various absurdities aside. Ghost Rider seems like--given Nicolas Cage has been in it for three minutes thirty minutes in--a bunch of live-action video game cut-scenes.

In one neat thing, maybe unintentional, Cage's friend, played by Donal Logue, resembles Cage's (filmic) father, Brett Cullen. Cullen's only in it in the flashback but he's sturdily good, giving Johnson's lame dialogue some life.

Cage's unsteady Southern accent. I don't know what to say about it. Other than someone should have noticed and had him loop his lines.

Johnson's actually a Panavision throwback--he shoots it in 1950s and 1960s-style (pre-Leone?). He uses the widescreen to fill it with as much information as possible, instead of actually composing meaningful shots. I don't even mean that one as an insult.

I'm trying to figure out why I'm still watching Ghost Rider, almost forty minutes in. Maybe because Ghost Rider hasn't shown up yet.

Johnson treats the romance between Cage and Eva Mendes like a romantic comedy, something for Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Cage almost achieves charming, but Mendes is terrible. Not just in the romantic comedy attempts either, but on every possible level. I hope there's a scene with her and Bentley though, just because it'd be so bad I can't even imagine it.

Anyway, forty-two minutes and still no flaming Ghost Rider. I'm not turning it off until then--which I think Johnson considered, since he slaps two flashbacks on the front of it, taking up fifteen or twenty minutes.

His face burns off. PG-13.

And there it is. At forty-eight minutes, Ghost Rider shows up. At fifty, I turn it off. I can't believe I made it. (I do need to point out, even though Ghost Rider's smaller than Nicolas Cage because he's just a skeleton, he still fills out the clothes like he's got skin and muscles).

Leaving Las Vegas. Bringing Out the Dead.

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Welcome to our blog about Wes Bentley

Tue, 11 Apr 2007 20:05:30 GMT

posted by The_Zimbio_Team
This is our group blog, which is unique because any Zimbio member can post an entry to it. Some members blog about recent news and trends related to the portal topic, others recount relevant personal stories. You can also comment on and rate existing blog entries, to voice your opinion and to help the community identify which members and entries on the portal are must-reads. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this portal? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own blog entry!

Wes Bentley (actor, 1978)

Mon, 4 Sep 2007 11:00:54 GMT

posted by misja
Bentley is currently Hollywood's hottest newcomer, winning critical acclaim in his stellar performance of a troubled high school drug dealer opposite Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and 26 ...