ATM: Critic Reviews

Mr. Brooks capitalizes on antiseptic, fluorescent interiors, while the score, by David Buckley, nicely accents stress points.

After memorably sealing Ryan Reynolds in a coffin in Buried, screenwriter Chris Sparling's attempts to make a two-ATM vestibule equally claustrophobic are less inspired...

While "ATM" does offer a few jolts, we're paired with bland characters and an underrealized premise.

Not much about the movie makes sense, though there are occasional schlocky thrills.

This ATM-set horror film fails to dispense sufficient thrills.

Screenwriter Chris Sparling worked in confined spaces to far better effect before with the minimalist Ryan Reynolds thriller"Buried." He must have used his best ideas there.

ATM's flawed premise leads to a film that lacks the necessary tension and character development to keep the audience engaged in the story. Furthermore, the characters' unwillingness to act on their situation merely makes for a very frustrating film.

[E]ven at the script stage, someone ought to have noticed how many holes were present in this story.

An increasingly ludicrous thriller...

Spatially contained thriller ATM squanders the efforts of a solid young cast, fumbling away viewer sympathy via increasingly harebrained scenarios. Audiences will feel as ripped off as they would be by exorbitant user fees at the namesake devices.

... resorts to incoherent contrivances involving characters who lack basic common sense.

A new thriller with three talented actors nonetheless caught in an ineffective film that stretches to meet its running time and then ends with a final act that destroys suspension of disbelief.

None of it builds to anything or engenders any real suspense.

It would probably work better as a parody. The laughs are already built-in.

...a vaguely interesting idea for a scary movie made dull and derivative

Perfunctory killings outside, bickering ninnies inside: It's about as riveting as it sounds.

Even by the most lenient of genre standards, the behavior of the characters in David Brooks's ATM is ludicrous enough to make anyone grind his or her teeth in frustration.

If both good and evil characters don't behave in ways that make sense vis-a-vis their circumstances, any sense of terror quickly dissipates.

ATM isn't a convincing movie, but the production is at least breaking a sweat on this effort, making it a promising misfire that might enchant those on the hunt for something slightly cockeyed when it comes to the torment of innocents.

There are too many forehead-slapping moments, too much overt contrivance, and an anticlimactic conclusion that doesn't add up to as much as one hopes or expects.

... a tidy, reasonably effective Canadian release in the tradition of Phone Booth, Buried and other tight-squeeze thrillers ... The twist ending would have amused no less a connoisseur than Hitchcock.